Application of the SOSim v2 Model to Spills of Sunken Oil in Rivers

Abstract

Sunken oil transport processes in rivers differ from those in oceans, and currently available models may not be generally applicable to sunken oil in river settings. The open-source Subsurface Oil Simulator (SOSim) model has been expanded to handle spills of sunken oil in navigable rivers, utilizing Bayesian inference to integrate field concentration data with bathymetric data to predict the location and movement of sunken oil. A novel prior likelihood function incorporates bathymetric input, with sampling grid and default parameters adapted appropriately for rivers. SOSim v2 was demonstrated versus field observations taken following the M/T (Motor Tanker) Athos I oil spill. The model was also modified to operate in 1-D, to assess the longitudinal distribution of sunken oil in a non-navigable river using available poling data collected following the Enbridge Kalamazoo River oil spill in 2010. Results of both case studies were consistent with observed data and local bathymetry in 2-D and 1-D, and the model is suggested as a complement to deterministic models for oil spill emergency response in rivers.

A Review of River Oil Spill Modeling

“…Jacketti et al [44] have expanded the open-source Subsurface Oil Simulator (SOSim) model to predict the location and movement of sunken oil in rivers. SOSim is a 2D multi-modal inferential Gaussian model where the general solution of advection-diffusion equation is the premise, while the sunken oil parameters (e.g., velocity, dispersion, number of patches) are inferred as maximum likelihood values from available field data together with the bathymetric data [45].…”

“…Jacketti et al [44] have first employed the 2D version of model to estimate the movement of sunken oil for the M/T Athos I oil spill, which occurred in the Delaware River (USA) in 2004 and for which field data have been collected. In the next step, the authors have applied the 1D version of the model to estimate the sunken oil characteristics for the 2010 Enbridge Kalamazoo River oil spill, as there was no publicly available bathymetric data to define river boundaries for this event.…”