An oil spill trajectory model: validation in the Mediterranean Sea

Due to recent maritime accidents which involved hazardous material releases in the sea, increasing attention has been dedicated to the maritime risk assessment and to the protection of natural resources, especially in coastal zones. The aim of this work is to develop a model to simulate the oil spill trajectories on the sea and to provide a useful tool for decision makers who have to manage oil spill emergency. The proposed oil spill model, based on the Lagrangian approach, defines the behaviour of oil slick on the water surface in space and time. The dynamics of oil spreading on the sea surface is modelled taking into account actual values for wind speed and surface current intensity. The model has been applied to simulate the oil spill propagation in the real case of the collision off the coast of Saint-Tropez (France) occurred on October 07, 2018.