The Challenge | Forecasting oil spill trajectories
Set up customized end-user applications to forecast oil spill trajectories. A fundamental tool for decision making during the management of crisis associated to accidental or illegal oil spills.
The Results | Tracking oil spills evolutions
NOW has developed interfaces for simulating and representing oil spill evolution. Through these applications, users can define main features of spill events (for instance, date and time, position, amount of spill, type of oil and some other parameters) and forecast its evolution using the best available operational oceanographic data sources. In addition, this NOW Oil Spill service includes backtracking capability to detect potential source areas of an identified spill. This is particularly useful for tracking cause of illegal discharges.
The joint use of high-resolution physical models (for wind, waves and currents) and this on-demand service provides extremely useful information to decision-makers, then fostering effective action, helping them into promptly spill-defence management (e.g. installation of skimmers, barriers.
Future | Floating debris and plastic trajectory forecasting
Apart from these oil spill services, NOW is working on integrating new products and services related to floating debris and plastic trajectory forecasting, residence time in semi-confined areas, as well as to other end-user tailored modules for water quality monitoring.
The Client
Puertos del Estado, is the State Ports Public Body, a body dependent on the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda that is responsible for the execution of the port policy of the Government of Spain, coordinating and controlling the efficiency of the Spanish Port System.