The impacts of piers on oil spill transport in a typical reach of the Middle Yangtze River

Abstract

Abstract Oil spill, a frequent pollution in the utilization of rivers, is receiving increasing attention in the study of river ecosystems. Taking the Zhuankou–Yangluo Reach (ZYR) of the Middle Yangtze River as an example, the spatial and temporal behaviors of leaked oil in the river under uniformly arranged piers with varying densities were studied based on a MIKE21 hydrodynamic and oil drift model. The results show that the oil spill spread is less affected by the piers when the upstream oil spill point is located on the other side of the shoreline with piers. However, the influence of the piers on the same shoreline of the oil spill point on oil spill transportation cannot be ignored. The piers significantly reduce the oil spill drift speed in the engineering area, resulting in a significant increase in slick retention time and slick area, especially when the density of piers is greater than 1.25 units/km. These results will provide useful reference for river management, for example, in the upstream river of the water conservation area, especially on the same bank as the water intake, where a large number of piers should not be built.