Modeling oil spill trajectory in Bosphorus for contingency planning

Bosphorus, is a strongly driven international maritime route between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara and is a high risk area for oil spill due to the heavy tanker traffic. In this study an oil spill trajectory model was developed for investigating the potential risks of accidental oil spills in Bosphorus. The proposed oil spill trajectory model combines the surface current velocity data obtained from a calibrated hydrodynamic model with the advection, spreading, and evaporation processes that are effective only on the sea surface and dominant for a couple of hours after the oil spill. Model simulations revealed that spilled oil reaches the shoreline on both sides of Bosphorus in < 4 h following the spill. We proposed locations for emergency intervention stations in Bosphorus which can be used to devise a suitable oil spill contingency plan to keep the adverse impacts of oil spills at minimum.