New software can predict the movement of an offshore oil spill in less than five minutes to prevent its spread, contamination and reduce socioeconomic and environmental costs.
This is a program developed by the Digital Earth Solutions company, as its general manager Juan Roos reassures Efe. be able to predict how it will behave in three to five days a leak on the ocean surface.
So, they design a design from this emerging company. The estimation of sea currents, waves, tides, and displacement at the mercy of the wind allows the action to contain it..
Although they didn’t work solely with hydrocarbons, they predicted “the drifting motion of plastics, algae and even human bodies” to find both their future trajectories and their origins, Roos said.
Models currently in use last “a few hours,” according to Roos. In predicting the movement of particles in the ocean, as they use “old methods without combining the mathematical advances of the past fifteen years”, as opposed to the five minutes this program can do.
Likewise, the software also allows to reduce costs by knowing exactly and immediately how the spill or particles will behave. enables “heavy collection efforts” to reduce collection costs by 20% and environmental impact by 70% as well as the socioeconomic impact of industries or ports, fishing or tourism companies affected by the spill.
At the moment, its developers are examining how to “automate” this software so the customer can use the map to “enter the discharge quantity, density and where to get the simulation” without having to contact that company directly for the estimated order which will speed up the process.
Leakage of ship OS35 and protection of dolphins
Given the incident in the Strait of Gibraltar earlier this month when hydrocarbons spilled from ship ‘OS35’ after colliding with another vessel, ‘Marine biologist Sara Pinto from Brutal’ collaborated with ‘Natura on the study of microplastics in the Bay of Algeciras and its impact on marine mammals’ He told Efe with his ‘Bosphorus’ and ‘People and Region’: asked this company for an estimate of the displacement of the discharge to protect marine species in the area.
Pinto explained that the strait is an environment where “sperm whales, killer whales, dolphins and other species have a very high biodiversity” so that in case of leakage They used this program that allows them to “monitor the spill without being in the water all the time and reaching all points on the shore”.because they knew from the computer that “any dolphin population we had observed calves two days ago would be affected at any time”.
Pinto explained that they eventually didn’t have to intervene as the leak didn’t reach where the dolphins were, but were grateful they knew “where to move” “thanks to the model.”
At least 400 commercial vessels pass through the Strait of Gibraltar every day, so “any tool to predict this type of emergency” is very helpful, the biologist said.
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