A REVIEW OF THE STATE-OF-THE-ART OF OIL SPILL FATE/BEHAVIOR MODELS

Abstract

ABSTRACT The fate and behavior of spilled oil can be affected by nine physical, chemical, and biological processes: advection, spreading, evaporation, dissolution, emulsification, dispersion, auto-oxidation, biodegradation, and sinking/sedimentation. Currently, oil fate predictions and/or the assessment of environmental impact or risk of a spill are based mostly on oil spill models which simulate only the advective processes and some which include also the spreading processes. These models do not account for the weathering or the loss of the spilled oil that may occur immediately or soon after the spill, and thus may lead to unrealistic assessments or inaccurate predictions. Models with varying degrees of sophistication and with different approaches for the various weathering processes are being developed, some of them implemented in composite oil fate/behavior models that are constructed to provide more realistic or accurate predictions. To provide some understanding of the current state-of-the-art of these modeling technologies, this paper presents an overview and discussion of the available models for each of the nine oil fate/behavior governing processes.