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October 2004
AMSA's Advanced Oil Spill System Used to Combat Pollution of the Sea
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) have been using ASA's
oil spill model (OILMAP) since 1999, as part of marine protection and
oil spill response for 18,000,000 square miles of ocean (1/10th of the
globe). OILMAP is used as a decision support tool to predict the movement
and weathering of oil spills as part of spill response training and
to aid in the effective deployment of oil spill response personnel and
equipment to protect environmentally sensitive areas in the event of
an actual spill.OILMAP
is also being used on a frequent basis in the investigation and prosecution
of the illegal discharge of oil at sea by ships.
In June 2004 AMSA upgraded their hydrodynamic model to now include HYDROMAP, ASA's ocean/coastal model, to predict ocean currents for OILMAP's trajectory models. Embedded in a user-friendly interface, HYDROMAP's unique gridding features expand OILMAP's modelling capability, allowing AMSA staff to resolve the effects of high-resolution coastal features such as through-flows between small islands and circulation within ports and harbours. This advancement enables accurate predictions of the water movement in the event of spills near the coast.
Using hydrodynamic
models such as HYDROMAP to drive oil spill models is not unusual.
However, what makes the OILMAP-HYDROMAP system significantly more advanced
than other standard systems is the ability to include large scale currents
measured by orbiting satellites supplied by CSIRO, as well as the use
of detailed spatial wind data provided by the Bureau of Meteorology
for the entire AMSA response region. ASA has developed tools to integrate
the large-scale currents (in NetCDF format) that develop in deeper water
off the continental shelf with the in-shore HYDROMAP-predicted tidal
currents. This allows the AMSA staff to forecast the movement of spilled
oil should it originate in deep waters and move towards the coastline,
or vice-versa. The spatial wind data (LAPS & GASP), provides a 3-day
forecast, allowing the user to run models forward in time and predict
the future movement and weathering of the oil. The goal is to allow
more time for planning and preparedness.
As part of this implementation of HYDROMAP, the system has been tested and validated for a number of Australia's known high risk sites including South Great Barrier Reef, Sydney Harbour, Port Phillip Bay and Darwin Harbour. In August 2003, HYDROMAP was used as part of a ground-truthing exercise in Moreton Bay National Marine Park. During this exercise, the integrated HYDROMAP-OILMAP system was found to produce accurate forecasts for the region.
For more information
please contact Sasha Zigic, szigic@apasa.com.au.
COASTMAP
in an ArcGIS Environment 
COASTMAP is a globally re-locatable, integrated system for real time observation, modeling, and data distribution for estuarine, coastal, shelf, and ocean waters. The system collects data (observations and model predictions) either from its online data storage system, via the internet from sources not served by its online storage system, or through its own network of observation stations.
The COASTMAP Professional Client has been designed for high end users that need to add metocean data management and analysis to their desktop GIS. COASTMAP is currently in transition to an extension for ESRI ArcGIS so that users can add metocean data management tools to their existing GIS framework.
To add metocean data, the COASTMAP user can request data from a COASTMAP data server. Communications between the client and server is handled using .NET-based web services. Support for Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) OpenDAP servers is also being added.
COASTMAP allows the user to ingest data formats such as NetCDF, GRIB, and HDF. Because of the size and the nature of the data, these data files are not converted to standard GIS formats but accessed in their native formats through the use of custom layers within the ArcMAP framework. These temporal data layers are available for visualization, animation, and data analysis within ArcGIS.
ASA's Time Toobar extension allows the user to animate time series data (point source and gridded) in the ArcGIS framework and synchronize all temporal layers stored in the project.
The COASTMAP Web Browser Client has been designed to reach a larger audience. It features a GIS based interface similar to the Professional Client, but simpler. The web-based system has limited data analysis and modeling capability, but allows the user to visualize model predictions and observations.
"Our challenge is to integrate very large time-varying datasets in a GIS environment" says Eoin Howlett, "and the new development tools available within ArcGIS9 combined with the use of .NET for web services has allowed us to implement solutions that were not possible a few years ago."
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Sample Oil Spill Animation using the COASTMAP-OILMAP extension. Purple vectors represent tidal data for the Arabian GUlf. Black and gray slick corresponds to the thickness of the oil. |
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| Photo courtesy of Alyeska Pipeline Service Company and Crowley Tub. |
The United States
Geological Survey (USGS) has purchased COASTMAP as part of the Tampa
Bay Integrated Science project. The USGS Tampa Bay Study uses an integrated
science approach to study the interrelations between geological, biological,
chemical, and hydrological components of estuarine systems, and the
impact of natural and anthropogenic change to all components of estuarine
systems. The USGS Geological (GD), Biological Resources (BRD), Water
Resources (WRD), and National Mapping (NMD) disciplines are working
together with other federal, state and local partners to develop and
implement an integrated, multidisciplinary science strategy for estuarine
research.
COASTMAP will be used to integrate a suite of hydrodynamic and pollutant
transport models with observational data and provide an integrated platform
for data distribution and analysis.
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Atmospheric
concentration predictions of an ammonia release using ARIMAP for
ArcGIS
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Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, operator of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System, has purchased AIRMAP to use with the Alyeska Tactical Oil Spill Model (ATOM) for Prince William Sound and surrounding areas. ATOM was developed by ASA in the early 90's and is used by Alyeska for oil spill response preparedness and training. The linkage of ATOM and AIRMAP will take the total evaporative losses predicted by ATOM and automatically input this to AIRMAP, which will then predict the movement and concentrations of the atmospheric plume.
Photo of an on-water
oil spill exercise in Prince William Sound courtesy of Alyeska Pipeline
Service Company and Crowley Tug.
The
City of Houston's (Texas) Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau
of Air Quality Control has purchased the AIRMAP extension for ESRI's
ArcGIS. The bureau is responsible for air quality issues within Houston's
city limits and enforces federal and state air pollution regulations.
AIRMAP will assist the City of Houston in defining the pollution plume
footprint from industrial facilities. Since AIRMAP is fully integrated
within ArcGIS the City of Houston can use all their existing enterprise
GIS data.
On 6 September, Eduardo Hassid went to Argentina to deliver the COASTMAP wave analysis module which interfaces with the SWAN model. This development is part of the GEF Patagonia Project that also includes oil spill modeling capabilities. The Photo below is the training that was conducted with the "Servicio de Hidrografia Naval - SHN" (Argentinean Navy) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in April 2004.
Eoin
Howlett, Tatsu Isaji and Paul Hall attended
meetings at the United States Coast Guard Research and Development Center
to coordinate an analysis of the use of current data from high frequency
sea surface radar systems (e.g., CODAR, OSCR) for search and rescue
modeling. ASA is working with Anteon, UConn and URI on a project for
the US Coast Guard to integrate current data from sea surface radar
systems into the new SAROPS search and rescue system. The trajectories
of nine Self Locating Data Marker Buoys (SLDMBs) deployed in July in
regions with active sea surface radar coverage will be modeled using
current data from the radar systems. The results will be used to optimize
future search and rescue planning efforts.
ASA's SARMAP system was recently featured in the July 2004 Discovery Channel documentary and investigation into the downing of Korean Airlines 007 (KAL007) which was shot down in 1983 with 269 aboard. Eoin Howlett and Malcolm Spaulding demonstrated the use of SARMAP to determine where the plane went down using known locations of where debris washed ashore.
In July Chris Galagan conducted a three-day OILMAP training course for AGIP KCO personnel in Atyrau, Kazakhstan. Training sessions focused on the difficult issues that would be faced by AGIP in the event of an oil spill in the North Caspian Sea. Training participants came from the Oil Spill, Ecology and Environment, and GIS/Geomatics Groups within AGIP.
On 14-15 September Chris Galagan attended the U.S. Maritime Security Expo at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. The expo brought key decision makers from government and industry together to identify issues and explore possible solutions in a public-private partnership environment.
Craig Swanson and Tatsu Isaji, along with Douglas Clarke and Charles Dickerson of the USACE Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), were co-authors of a paper Simulations of Dreging and Dreged Material Disposal Operations in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland and Saint Andrew Bay, Florida. Craig and Doug presented the paper at WEDA XXIV/36th TAMU Dredging Seminar on 7-9 July in Orlando,FL.
On
13 July, Marco Correa went to Santa Catarina State in southern
Brazil to make a presentation to PETROBRAS, the University, and local
authorities about modeling ocean outfall effluent. ASA South America
is using CHEMMAP for environmental permitting simulations for the S.Francisco
Terminal outfall.
Sasha Zigic presented a paper "Modelling the 3-dimensional
flow between the Nerang River Estuary and Burleigh Lakes system, Gold
Coast" at the 8th National Conference on Hydraulics in Water Engineering,
Gold Coast on the 16th July 2004.
As part of the technology transfer, 8 senior The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) staff (Trevor Gilbert, Peter Hadrill, Tracey Baxter, Karen Shaw, Shane Wilde, Paul Nelson, Keith Brown & Lisa Holman), underwent a three day intensive HYDROMAP and OILMAP training course from the 28-30 June, carried out by Sasha Zigic and Marc Zapata. See story on front page for more details on the technology transfer.
Eoin Howlett and Chris Galagan attended the ESRI International User Conference in San Diego, CA 9-13 August. Eoin presented a paper on SAROPS, a search and rescue application that is currently being developed for the US Coast Guard within the C/JMTK framework. Eoin also attended the METOC breakout session that discussed the integration of temporal metocean data with ArcGIS. Over 13,000 people attended this year's conference.
On
16 August, Eduardo Yassuda went to Chile to deliver additional
licenses of OILMAP that will be used in the five new emergency centers
along the Chilean coast.
Kelly Knee and Claudia Suárez conducted a stream gauging survey to measure freshwater flow in the Palmer River for a project to characterize the environmental effects of a proposed desalinization plant in the town of Swansea, MA.
Asia
Pacific's premier marine environmental pollution prevention and response
conference, Spillcon, was held in Brisbane, Australia, 23 - 27 August.
Brian King, Marc Zapata and Sasha Zigic shared a booth with John
Leeder, Bill Stavropoulos and Rean Monfils from Leeder Consulting, and
provided information about our various services. The conference was
considered a great success with approximately 250 delegates from around
the globe.
Kathy
Sheridan presented
the results of the Port Walcott Oil Spill Risk Assessment study to the
Western Australian Department for Planning and Infrastructure (DPI).
HYDROMAP and SIMAP were used to estimate the rate of spread of a possible
oil spill, and results were added to the WA Oil Spill Response Atlas
to help guide spill response.
Jiganesh Patel has returned to ASA after completing his Master of
Science in Environment and Resource Management at the Free University
in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He completed his thesis at Delft Hydraulics
on the subject of oil spill modeling on the Dutch coastal zone as it
relates to the issue of place of refuge. Jiganesh will be working with
the USGS to use COASTMAP and other ASA software as part of the Tampa
Bay Integrated Science Project.
Craig Swanson and Dan Mendelsohn of Applied Technical and Management presented the results of a thermal mapping field program and hydrothermal modeling study of the Saugus River in Massachusetts to state and federal agency representatives in support of the re-permitting of the Wheelabrator Saugus facility thermal discharge. One unexpected finding was the large natural daily variation of water temperatures (4-6 degrees Celsius) that appeared to be generated from the extensive mud flats along the river that are exposed at low tide.
Craig Swanson was lead author on a poster session presentation at the 2nd National Conference on Coastal and Estuarine Habitat Restoration (Restore America's Estuaries 2004) in Seattle, WA on 12-15 September. The poster was entitled Advanced Source Identification Tool for Estuary Restoration: Integrated Hydrodynamic and Pollutant Transport Model System for Bacteria in Southport Harbor, Connecticut. Other authors included Kelly L. Streich (CT Department of Environmental Protection), Mary E. Garren (US Environmental Protection Agency), and Harry X. Zhang (Parsons Corporation).
In
the first week of July Sasha Zigic provided Greg Terrens, Sarah
Sheales and Katrina Kaufman from ESSO Australia with an intensive 1-day
OILMAP training course. The training course exercises provided hands
on experience for emergency response and contingency planning for their
various operations around Victoria.
September
21-24, Deborah French McCay participated in NOAA Damage Assessment
Center's Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) Annual Training hosted by Northwestern
Michigan College in Traverse City, MI. Debbie
presented an overview of the chemistry of acid and base spills into
fresh and salt water and the use of the "Acid-Base Calculator"
developed by Debbie, Nicole Whittier, and Jim Payne (Payne Environmental
Consultants, Inc.). The calculator estimates the volume of water where
pH change would exceed limits tolerated by aquatic life. The calculator
will be useful for planning spill response and damage assessments.
| Upcoming Conferences |
Rio
Oil & Gas Expo; 4 - 7 October; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Brazilian
Oceanography Congress; 10-15 October; Itajai (SC), Brazil
Technologies
for Search, Assistance and Rescue Seminar; 18-20 October; Brest, France
IMEMS
conference; 19-21 October; Washington DC
Global
Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE) Symposium; 1-3 November;
St Petersburg, FL
American
Water Resources Association annual conference; 1-4 November; Orlando,
FL
Gulf
and Caribbean Fisheries Institute GIS and Remote Sensing in Fisheries
Research and Management session; 8 November; St Petersburg, FL
Clean
Gulf conference and exhibition; 17-18 November; Tampa, FL
Regional
Conference & Exhibition on Offshore/ Coastal Protection - Offshore
Arabia 2004; 29 November - 1 December; Dubai
Please visit our websites at www.appsci.com for new ASA publications.