Oil Spill Modelling and Mapping of Oil Spill Risk Areas

Detection of oil spills and predicting its movement towards Indian shores and assessment of extent of damage is an important activity pre-requisite for management and oil spills and combating its ill effects. The Ministry of Earth Sciences has developed this expertise under the programme on ‘Oil Spill Modelling and Mapping of Oil Spill Risk Areas’. This was revealed by Union Minister for Science and technology and Earth Sciences Shri Kapil Sibal today at a press conference in New Delhi. He said the efforts will help protect the biodiversity along the coastal region by timely assessing the nature and movement of the spill.

The potential threat from operational or accidental oil spills from tankers and other oil related activities could lead to largescale destruction of marine life and property of the coastal region. Oil spills in marine waters can damage social and economic systems as well as the natural environment of surrounding seas which support valuable fishing grounds, coastal ecosystems, Protected Marine National Park areas, long recreational and tourist beaches. Protection of marine life, environmental resources and property, prevention of loss of resources against oil spills damages is a priority concern for oil spill management in India. The Western part of Indian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), Lakshadweep and the Nicobar Islands lie close to one of the major oil tanker routes originating from the Gulf countries going to South East Asia. Nearly 500 million tones of crude oil are carried by about 3500 tankers along this route. Any major oil spill occurring in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal will lead to large scale damage to marine environment. The country has several ecologically sensitive areas like Coral Reefs, mangroves and areas of unique biodiversity like turtle nesting grounds, etc. To protect these areas against oil spill damages, the country has a spill management programme since 1980. The important aspects include R&D in oil spill detection, management, combating and legal aspects.

Under this Oil Spill Modelling and Mapping of Oil Spill Risk Areas following are covered:

Development of oil spill trajectory model indicating the movement of oil spills from Western and Eastern EEZ to the coastal areas of the country.

Development area/habitat specific oil spill models for high risk areas;

Operationalising the model during oil spill incidents.

PRIORITY AREAS THAT NEED PROTECTION

All the major ports along the Indian coastline, the locations of Single Point Moorings (SPMs), and exploration, locations of oil refineries, tanker movements, and areas pose risk of oil spills. The ecologically and environmentally sensitive areas namely mangrove, coral reef, lagoons and turtle nesting grounds; economically sensitive areas like tourist beaches and archeologically sensitive areas such as Forts, ancient monuments etc face various levels of oil spill threats. Location of these areas and the extent of oil spill threat in these areas is given in Annexure.

OIL SPILL TRAJECTORY MODEL

Integrated Coastal Marine Area Management Project Directorate (ICMAM-PD), Chennai, an R&D unit of the Ministry has developed this model which contains the following:

Tracking of oil spills from offshore to coastal areas of India based on wind speed, wind velocity, sea current, etc.;

The ICMAM-PD has also developed habitat specific oil spill model for Gulf of Kutch;

Strategies that need to be adopted for 19 high risk areas (the work is going on for development of models for each specific habitat and is expected to be completed by March 2009)

The oil spill trajectory model for tracking oil spills has already been installed at Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad, an autonomous institute under this Ministry, which mans it on 24x7 basis along with interim tsunami warning system. In case of an oil spill, INCOIS will run this model and provide prediction along with recommendations to Coast Guard, Disaster Management Office and other senior functionaries in the Government.

HOW DOES THE MODEL WORK

Step 1: Detection of loss of oil by tankers/spotting of oil spill by Coast Guard Surveillance Ship/Indian Navy Passing Vessels/Maritime Rescue Center.

Step 2: Information on location, quantity of oil spilled etc. passed on to INCOIS

Step 3: Model is run by INCOIS based on oil type, location, bathymetry (depth of water) live data of wind speed, wind direction, sea current, tide condition, etc.

Step 4: Likely path to be taken by oil spill and shoreline to be affected are predicted by Model;

Step 5: Online intimation sent to Coast Guard, concerned Port Authority, State Government, MHA, NDMA, State Pollution Control Board, etc.

The path and affected areas are further refined every three hours or as required based on latest data on wind speed & wind direction.

Position of oil spill will also be tracked based on satellite picture by INCOIS and/or by aerial survey by Coast Guard.

BENEFITS

Timely deployment of booms to prevent movement of oil to sensitive coastal habitats (corals, mangroves, beaches, lagoons) and damage to marine life;

Timely information to industries/power plants which have sea water intake system for cooling purposes, etc. so that their systems are not damaged.

Estimation of loss of resources, which will help in claiming compensation.

Source : Press Information Bureau
Date : November 11, 2006