On
13 and 15 July 2006 the Jieh power utility
located 30 km south of Beirut and directly
on the coastline was hit by bombs. Part of
the storage tanks caught fire. The fuel that
did not catch fire was spilled into the
Mediterranean Sea. The estimated amount of
oil spilled ranges from 10,000
to 20,000
tons.
Following
a request from several
end-users, such as REMPEC-Regional
Emergency Centre for Response to Oil spill
Pollution in the Mediterranean,
the Cyprus Ministry of Environment, the
Cyprus Civil Protection Agency
and the European Commission Civil
Protection co-operation Mechanism;
the Cyprus
Oceanography Centre at
the University of Cyprus applied the
Mediterranean oil spill model-MEDSLIK in the
NE Levantine,
in order to predict the dispersion and the
movement of the oil spill in the sea
area off Lebanon.
The MEDSLIK oil spill model constitute one
of the oil spill models of the EU MERSEA-IP
that is aiming to establish the Marine
Core services of the GMES.
For the MEDSLIK
oil spill model
application the high resolution
operational CYCOFOS ocean forecasting
products, available on a daily base, were
used (http://www.oceanography.ucy.ac.cy/cycofos)
. The CYCOFOS ocean model is nested
operationally
with the ALERMO/
MFS-OPA models. The
MFS-OPA model constitutes one of the EU
MERSEA-IP regional ocean forecasting models.
The MEDSLIK oil spill model used
also the high frequency SKIRON winds.
Several
scenarios were carried out soon after the Cyprus
Oceanography Centre at the University of
Cyprus received the relevant
oil information from REMPEC.
The
CYCOFOS/
MFS-OPA
forecasts
show that from 13 July up to day, off
Lebanon and Syrian coast their
is a strong northward
currents with sea temperatures as
high as 28-30 deg. C, while the SKIRON
winds are mostly
south-westerly.
The MEDSLIK
oil spill simulations showed
that the oil was moved northward by the
currents and the winds. Moreover, the
MEDSLIK application showed that a little
less than 20% of the oil was
evaporated within the first 2 days, while a
little less than 80% of the oil was
stranded
on the shores
along Lebanon and South Syria, and about
0.25% was remained at
sea (i.e.
about 40 tonnes of oil if considering a
15000 tonnes spill).
These results were validated later
on from:
a) the observations of the Ministry
of Environment of Lebanon, b) several
remote sensing images,
such as those from MODIS that were
analysed at the Cyprus
Oceanography and the SAR images analyzed by
the JRC in Ispra, c) other oil spill
modelling applications where lower
resolution ocean forecasts were used.
The
operational MEDSLIK oil spill modelling
application in the NE Levantine assisted the
agencies in charge to response in case of
oil spills incidents and the decision makers
in Europe and in Lebanon to obtain a first
overview of the area covered of the spilled
oil along the coast of Lebanon and south
Syria and demonstrated the benefit of
having an operational oceanographic
forecasting system in place, that is part
of the MERSEA- GMES Marine Core Service.
Position of the oil at
the coast after 28 day simulation
The
Lebanese Ministry of Environment Mr. Yacoub
R. Sarraf and the Director General INFO/RAC-MAP
of the United Nations Environmental
Programme were expressed their thanks for
the precious results of the MEDSLIK oil
spill application in the Lebanon oil spill
pollution. Particular, the Lebanese
Minister of Environment mentioned that the
results of the oil spill model confirmed
their observations and are useful for the
assessment of the oil spill situation in the
ground and will provide a basis
for selecting the priority sites to be
cleaned during the clean-up operations. The
results of the MEDSLIK oil spill application
are included in the "International
Assistance Action Plan for the oil pollution
in Lebanon" prepared by a group of experts
supervised by REMPEC on the 15 August 2006
and it was presented on the 17 August 2006
at the Athens meeting of several UN, EU and
regional Mediterranean countries high level
officials, in order to discuss the efforts
to avert a potential environmental
catastrophe stemming from a massive oil
spill off the coast of Lebanon and ways in
assisting Lebanon in the clean up
operations.
