OIL SPILL PREVENTION AND RESPONSE AT LOCAL SCALES

Programme 2007 - 2013 Atlantic Area

Date of latest update: 2025-04-26

Description

Description (EN):

The main aims of this project are to: (i) develop a set of high resolution operational oceanographic systems in several estuaries or ports located in the Atlantic Area, and (ii) establish local oil spill response plans for these local areas based on risk assessment. This work will apply to estuaries all along the European Atlantic coast region. The project partners have been chosen to represent the full range of coastal and hydrological conditions. The methodologies and techniques developed will be applied to sites with physical, biological and socio-economical characteristics that make them highly vulnerable to oil spill. This project creates a transnational multi -disciplinary co-operation across 8 main project partners of four countries of the Atlantic Area (Spain, Portugal, France and United Kingdom), with the aim of address ing common problems and solutions regarding the enhancing the marine and coastal environment sustainability. A combined effort between the partner countries will allow achieving a much greater progress than separate country actions, thus establishing common standard that will contribute to the improvement of interconnections between territories. Although the core partners are research institutes, the match funder s and sponsors include regional, government and environmental authorities. The stakeholders will contribute in ensuring that the results and findings are taken up by end users.

Achievements (EN):

AVEIRO LAGOON A high-resolution operational oceanographic platform is available for Aveiro Lagoon (RDFS-SPRES: http://ariel.lnec.pt/spres/). In addition to the hydrodynamic forecast, this platform provides oil spill forecasts for 6 pre-defined locations, which were chosen due to be more prone for accidents (navigational routes, harbour structures, hydrocarbons product terminal). SANTANDER BAY A web platform made up of two components: (1) An operational system (HR-OOS) and (2) an oil spill risk assessment system (HR-OSRAS) is available for Santander Bay (http://spres. ihcantabria.es/). The HR-OOS provides decision makers with short-term (within 48 hours) oil spill trajectory forecasting. BELFAST LOUGH A high Resolution (46 m) Operational Oceanographic System in Belfast Lough is near completion, and is composed of two components: (1) the HR operational oceanographic module, based on a bespoke Delft-3D hydrodynamic model, and (2) the HR oil spill forecast module, based on the oil spill model, TESEO. The system receives daily ocean and meteorological forcings from the European initiative “MyOcean” and the UK Meteorological Office, and provides two-day forecasts of sea level, currents, salinity and temperature based on numerical modelling. This web application allows end users to easily access the forecast and to launch the oil spill model to estimate the oil spill trajectories and fate both in case of pollution threat and for training purposes. In addition, new instrumentation has been installed on Pile 8 within the Inner Lough, and plans are to embed a data-feed from these instruments showing live plots of temperature, salinity, sea level and meteorological readings. FALMOUTH PORT Operational Oceanographic System (OOS) based of Delft3D code was implemented in this study area. Currently, daily forecasts of currents, salinity and water temperature in this area are available at a web portal. The system receives daily meteorological and ocean forcings from European and UK’s organizations and provides 36 hours forecasts. Data such as Falmouth bathymetry data and tide gauge information was sent to technical partners for input into the models. Real time data on wind, water elevation and currents (between others parameters) are also available through the website. RISK ASSESSMENT SYSTEMS As part of the web platforms developed in each site, risk assessment systems are currently being implemented. This risk assessment system will allow user to make an assessment using pre-run cases (previously defined as oil spill scenarios) and the assessed vulnerability carried out for each site, given a hypothetic oil spill in a given location. These systems will be the basis for proposing protection and clean up plans. Fig 5 shows an example of a vulnerability map. PROTECTION AND CLEANUP PLANS As it has been previously done for Santander Bay and Aveiro Lagoon in March 2013, shore surveys were completed in Falmouth Harbour - Falmouth estuary and Belfast Lough to identify the different shoreline types and ecological sensitivity. This data will be used to define protection feasibility and appropriate clean-up techniques. Meetings with Harbour representatives were organised for each site by the responsible partner and allowed to improve knowledge of oil spill preventive measures defined in local contingency plans, measures in place and to visit to some of the existing oil pollution stockpiles. more information on achievements is available on the projects web site: http://spres.ihcantabria.com

Thematic information

Coastal management and maritime issues Managing natural and man-made threats, risk management

Partners (8)

Lead Partner: Fundación Instituto de Hidráulica Ambiental de Cantabria

Address: 39005 Santander, Spain

Legal status: n/a

LABORATÓRIO NACIONAL DE ENGENHARIA CIVIL (LNEC), I.P.

Name: LABORATÓRIO NACIONAL DE ENGENHARIA CIVIL (LNEC), I.P.

Address: 1700-066 LISBOA, Portugal

Legal status: n/a

Centre de Documentation, de Recherche et d’expérimentations sur les pollutions accidentelles des eaux

Name: Centre de Documentation, de Recherche et d’expérimentations sur les pollutions accidentelles des eaux

Address: 29218 BREST CEDEX 2, France

Legal status: n/a

Departamento de Ambiente e Ordenamento

Name: Departamento de Ambiente e Ordenamento

Address: 3810 AVEIRO, Portugal

Legal status: n/a

Falmouth Harbour Commission

Name: Falmouth Harbour Commission

Address: TR11 3JQ Falmouth, United Kingdom

Legal status: n/a

AZTI-Tecnalia

Name: AZTI-Tecnalia

Address: 48395 Sukarrieta (Bizkaia), Spain

Legal status: n/a

SERVICIOS DE EMERGENCIAS DE CANTABRIA, S.A.

Name: SERVICIOS DE EMERGENCIAS DE CANTABRIA, S.A.

Address: 39011 Santander (Cantabria), Spain

Legal status: n/a

Agri-Food & Bioscience Institute

Name: Agri-Food & Bioscience Institute

Address: BT9 5PX Belfast, United Kingdom

Legal status: n/a

Partners map

Lead partner

Project partner

Summary

Project name (EN): OIL SPILL PREVENTION AND RESPONSE AT LOCAL SCALES

Project acronym: SPRES

Project start date: 2012-01-09

Project end date: 2014-07-09

Project status: closed

Total budget/expenditure: EUR 1 163 377.00

Total EU funding (amount): EUR 626 436.00

Co-financing sources:

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

Financing programme

2007 - 2013 Atlantic Area

Last month that data in keep.eu was retrieved from the Programme's website or received from the Programme

2015-12-01

No. of projects in keep.eu / Total no. of projects (% of projects in keep.eu)

70 / 70 (100%)

No. of project partnerships in keep.eu / Total no. of project partnerships (% of project partnerships in keep.eu)

655 / 655 (100%)

Notes on the data

Information provided by the Programme

Languages

Contact Form

OIL SPILL PREVENTION AND RESPONSE AT LOCAL SCALES

Description

Thematic information

Partners (8)

Partners map

Summary

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

Disclaimer