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The evaluation and analysis of the oil-spill risks along the coast of Taiwan

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.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0814108-225629
Date14 August 2008
CreatorsChung, Kuo-lung
ContributorsJason C.S.Yu, Jimmy C.M.Kao, Lei-Yang
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0814108-225629
Rightswithheld, Copyright information available at source archive

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