Currently there is limited design guidance for calculation that involves an unchannelled balcony spill plume. The current guidance for unchannelled spill plume can be obtained from CIBSE (TM19) and BS PD 7974 (Part 2). The guidance is a result of an analysis performed by Law (1995) on a set of experiments performed by Hansell et al (1993). Recently a series of unchannelled balcony spill plume experiments have been performed by Harrison (2009) at 1/10th-scale as part of a research project. Harrison (2009) developed a simplified design formula to calculate the mass flow rate from unchannelled spill plume. Results from Harrison suggested that an unchannelled balcony spill plume is a complex problem and his experiments were limited by the experimental facility. Harrison (2009) recommended that this problem should be supported with computer modelling for design. Research from Harrison (2009) also resulted in a correlation that can be used to calculate the effective width of an unchannelled balcony spill plume. This research is primarily a numerical simulation of the unchannelled balcony spill plume using Fire Dynamics Simulator 5 version 5.3.0 (FDS 5). FDS 5 was used to model unchannelled balcony spill plume experiments performed by Harrison (2009) at 1/10th-scale. Results from Harrison‟s (2009) experiment were used to verify the results from the FDS simulation. A good match was obtained between experimental results and FDS simulation results. The 1/10th-scale model was extended to full-scale using the scaling laws. Then, the model was used to perform a series of unchannelled balcony spill plume simulations with variables of balcony breadth, compartment opening, fire size and height of rise of the spill plume. Mass flow rate readings from simulations were used to improve the effective width correlations developed by Harrison and an improved effective width correlation was developed. Unchannelled balcony spill plume mass flow rate prediction with the revised effective width correlation was compared with mass flow rate predictions using the effective width correlation from Law (1995) and Harrison (2009).

Oil spill accidents represent an inherent occupational, environmental, economic, and community health disaster associated with the transformation of petroleum resources into products that help meet our world’s energy need. Dispersants are applied to break the oil spill into sufficiently small droplets and mitigate oil spill impacts by reducing the possibility of shoreline impact, lessening the impact on marine life and significantly increasing the oil-water interfacial area available for remediation processes. Existing dispersants are liquid solutions of surfactant in hydrocarbon solvents. There are several concerns with the existing dispersant systems including the large volume of hydrocarbon solvents introduced into the ecosystem. / Olasehinde Gbenro Owoseni

Taiwan is located in a strategic location in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of maritime shipping. With the passage of some 400 vessels in its coastal waters, the country is regarded as one of the high risk areas of oil spill. In early 2001, the Greek MV Amorgos grounded in Kenting and caused severe damage to the local marine ecosystem. However, the law suit failed to obtain a just compensation on the loss of coral reed recovery, fishery loss and local economy. The court did not accept the data provided by the authority. Since Taiwan is not the member of the United Nations, it is difficult to process and get the compensation following the related conventions (e.g., 1969 CLC Convention and 1971 FUND Convention¡^. In this regard, this thesis examine the related issues, analyze the international and domestic cases, review the existing mechanisms and finally proposed appropriate suggestions on the mechanism improvement of oil spill compensation for Taiwan.

4 pp. / On Wednesday August 5, 2015, during an EPA mine site investigation of the Gold King Mine near Silverton, CO, heavy equipment caused an unexpected release of acid mine drainage trapped inside a mine tunnel. A sample of the water was analyzed and found to contain several heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, and cadmium. This publication describes the event and evaluates the potential impact to water users below the Lake Powell Reservois and Arizona Farmers.

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ince the 1970s, environmental monitoring in China has formed a complete web across the country with over 2000 monitoring stations. China State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has published an annual report on the State of the Environment in China since 1989. The Chinese government began to inform the public of environmental quality and major pollution incidents through major media since the late 1990s. However, environmental quality data has not been adequately used because of constraints on access and data sharing. The public and interested groups still lack access to environmental data and information. After examining the current air quality reporting systems of the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Ontario Ministry of Environment, reviewing current Internet GIS technology and sample websites, this thesis developed an ArcIMS website to publish air quality data and provide background information to the public for the city of Dalian, China. The purpose is to inform the public of daily air quality and health concerns, and to improve public awareness of environmental issues. A better-informed and educated public will be more likely to voluntarily conserve the environment in the long run. The development of this thesis can satisfy most basic expectations. However, due to the limitation of current Internet products like ArcIMS, symbology and connection with outside databases are not adequate. In addition some regular GIS analysis functions are not available to Internet GIS products. This development can be further improved to serve other environmental data to the public with better interactivity through coding. Similar Internet GIS products can be used in other Chinese cities to report their air quality data. For internal data sharing and reporting within the government, an open, interoperable distributed GIService is recommended, which is believed to be the future of Internet GIS.

Coastal environment is extremely sensitive area. The presence of oil and petroleum residues in the marine environment results from abusive spillages by ships and boats to the detriment of marine ecosystems navigation, and commercial actives such as fisheries, coastal industry development, and tourism; as well as to coastal resources when the oil reaches land. Up to now, there still isn¡¦t a complete evaluation and solution for the oil-spill risks in Taiwan. It is very important to organize and prepare an operational response for coastal oil pollution accidents. The use of computer models to predict the movement of oil helps to make best use of the various measures and equipment that can be employed in case of an oil spill accident. In this study, the numerical model MEDSLIK is used to directly model the transport of oil for the coast sea around Taiwan. MEDSLIK is a 3D oil spill model designed to predict the transport, fate and weathering of an oil spill. The MEDSLIK oil spill model in pre-operational mode was first developed in 1997 (Lardner et al. 1998) to assist the objectives of the EU LIFE project ¡§Subregional contingency Plan for Preparedness and response to Major Pollution Incidents in the Eastern Mediterranean-Levantine¡¨. The software consists of three parts, a graphical input interface through which the user enters data concerning the spill and environmental conditions, a run module that performs the computations that simulate the spill behaviors and a graphical output interface by means of which the user can examine the predictions of the model. The aim of this study is to adopt MEDSLIK model to predict the expected state of the oil when it arrives at a given location around Taiwan. The input data includes the type of oil and its characteristics, forecasts of wind direction and strength, sea temperature, currents and conditions at sea. By using MEDSLIK oil spill model to simulate the Tzini oil-spill accident, the oil disperses between the south part of Suao Harbor and Naao. The modeling results compare well with the actual situation. The main result is the MEDSLIK model provides the oil-spill movement pattern around Taiwan Sea and answers questions such as how much will evaporate, how much will be dispersed as fine droplets in the water, where the oil spill is most likely move to, and how soon it will get there. However, the wind input data is quantitative in this study. Future tasks must fully account the impact of regional wind field to oil movement and emphasize on anticipating likely impacts on the coast and provide an early warming and mitigation tool to plan an effective response to keep oil away from key coastal resources.

On April 20th, 2010, a fire broke out on the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) offshore oil drilling rig on the Macondo prospect located off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). This fire and resulting explosions resulted in the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig and the largest marine oil spill in history. An estimated 4.9 million (+/- 10%) barrels were released into the Gulf of Mexico over the ensuing 87 days. Many economically important fish species spawn in northern Gulf of Mexico waters; the spawning seasons and pelagic larval phase of many of these species occur within the temporal extent of the DWH oil spill (April through July). Fish eggs and larvae in waters exposed to Macondo oil likely experienced lethal and sublethal physiological effects, leading to potential losses in year class strength depending on the proportion of a population’s larval production encountering oil. Differing spatial distributions of larvae due to different spawning locations and seasons could predict that some species were disproportionately affected by the DWH oil spill. This study aims at quantifying the impact of the spill across numerous taxa, by estimating the proportion of species-, genus-, or family-specific fish larval abundances located within the spatial/temporal domain of the DWH spill until the Macondo well was capped. Estimates and related uncertainties were based on empirical ichthyoplankton data collected over 27 years and on observed and modeled distribution of surface oil slicks and concentrations. In addition, two hypothetical oil spills were simulated on the Western Florida Slope and on the Western interior of the Gulf of Mexico to assess the impact of oil spills to the ichthyoplankton from different offshore locations that would have occurred during the DWH spill period. Ichthyoplankton data collected during annual plankton surveys (and other resource surveys) as part of the Southeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program – Gulf of Mexico (SEAMAP) during years 1982-2009 were used to describe the composition and distribution of ichthyoplankton in the northern Gulf of Mexico. The SEAMAP larval fish data along with oil surface distributions (both actual and simulated) were used to estimate the proportions of larvae of 115 selected fish taxa that were potentially exposed to DWH oil. Bootstrapping methods were applied to the SEAMAP data to quantify the variability. Proportions of larval fish potentially exposed to oil were calculated for four oil spill scenarios: (1) the DWH spill, (2) an September-December oil spill with the same spatial footprint as the DWH spill but occurring later in the year, (3) a west Florida Slope spill occurring during the months of April-July and centered at 27˚N, 85˚W, and (4) a western GOM spill occurring during the spring and centered at 27˚N, 93.5˚W. Spill scenarios (3) and (4) were modeled using the Connectivity Modeling System (CMS). The CMS is a Lagrangian model which predicts oil droplet distribution and degradation based on oil properties and ocean currents. Significant differences in the proportion of larvae potentially exposed were found in the DWH spill and the three simulations. The proportion of fish larvae exposed to the DWH spill varied between 0% (many species) and 26.8% (Cynoscion nebulosus). The proportion of fish larvae exposed to simulated spills varied between 0% and 78.9% (Bonapartia pedaliota in Western GOM spill). Both the west Florida Slope oil spill and the western GOM spills had a disproportionally greater impact on a larger number of taxa than the DWH spill, even after correcting for their larger spatial extent. For the DWH spill (Scenario 1), the potentially most impacted taxa were Cynoscion nebulosus, Engraulidae, Rachycentron canadum, and Etropus spp. If the DWH spill had occurred in the fall (Scenario 2), the most potentially impacted taxa would have been Leiostomus xanthurus, Elopidae, and Pomatomus saltatrix. For a west Florida slope exposure (Scenario 3), the potentially most impacted taxa would be Holocentridae, Acanthocybium solandri, Coryphaena spp., and Pomacanthidae. For a western GOM spill (Scenario 4), the most potentially impacted taxa would be Bonapartia pedaliota, Thunnus thynnus, Caranx spp., and Holocentridae.. The historical SEAMAP data set combined with the CMS modeling tool provides a powerful planning tool to understand the potential impacts of oil spills in the northern GOM and the relative sensitivity of locations in the Northern GOM to oil spill effects.

ince the 1970s, environmental monitoring in China has formed a complete web across the country with over 2000 monitoring stations. China State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has published an annual report on the State of the Environment in China since 1989. The Chinese government began to inform the public of environmental quality and major pollution incidents through major media since the late 1990s. However, environmental quality data has not been adequately used because of constraints on access and data sharing. The public and interested groups still lack access to environmental data and information. After examining the current air quality reporting systems of the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Ontario Ministry of Environment, reviewing current Internet GIS technology and sample websites, this thesis developed an ArcIMS website to publish air quality data and provide background information to the public for the city of Dalian, China. The purpose is to inform the public of daily air quality and health concerns, and to improve public awareness of environmental issues. A better-informed and educated public will be more likely to voluntarily conserve the environment in the long run. The development of this thesis can satisfy most basic expectations. However, due to the limitation of current Internet products like ArcIMS, symbology and connection with outside databases are not adequate. In addition some regular GIS analysis functions are not available to Internet GIS products. This development can be further improved to serve other environmental data to the public with better interactivity through coding. Similar Internet GIS products can be used in other Chinese cities to report their air quality data. For internal data sharing and reporting within the government, an open, interoperable distributed GIService is recommended, which is believed to be the future of Internet GIS.