10 Applications of the Inverse Problem of Pollution Propagation
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traffic on the environment in a fairly general framework that accounts not only for
the local costs of accidents but also reveals the costs that become evident later, far
from the accident site through the propagation of various adverse impacts released
either occasionally or as a consequence of an accident. This concept is a generalization of the idea of applying emerging knowledge about semi-persistent current
patterns to minimize the consequences of potential accidents (e.g., by routing ship
traffic through specific areas, Soomere and Quak 2007). A decrease in the aggregate
environmental risk (see Eq. (1.1) in Chap. 1) is achieved preventively, before the accident happens. Similar applications can also be developed to specify how far from
the open ocean coast an economically feasible and environmentally friendly sailing
line should be located (Soomere et al. 2011c).
10.2 The Use of Lagrangian Trajectories of Current-Driven
Transport in the Surface Layer
The problem of identifying the least dangerous offshore areas can be simplified by
considering an oil spill as a cluster of persistent oil particles of neutral buoyancy
that are passively carried with surface currents. Then an approximate quantification
of the level of danger posed by oil spills can be obtained by the statistical analysis
of a large number of Lagrangian trajectories of single pollution particles released
to the sea at different time instants and locations (Abascal et al. 2010; Soomere
et al. 2010). An approximation of the areas of reduced risk is thus sought through
the extraction of information from a large pool of particular solutions of the direct
problem of propagation of oil particles.
The previous chapter demonstrated the potential of this approach to unveil the
presence of very rich, usually concealed internal structures of semi-persistent transport patterns in certain sea areas (Soomere et al. 2011d). This chapter focuses on
a subset of such patterns that may bring oil pollution close to the coast. The major
technical problems are the same: (i) how to extract useful information from the vast
amount of numerically simulated data, and (ii) how to realize an implementation for
the shipping or offshore industry based on the extracted information.
For simplicity, the potential of the technique is demonstrated here for the particular case when the trajectories of particles representing adverse impacts are locked in
the uppermost layer and thus reflect the behaviour of the lighter fractions of the oil
pollution. Although we only consider a few examples of simplified environmental
criteriaenvironmental criterion, the approach can be easily modified to account for
virtually any realistic set of measures or to be used in combination with practically
any set of values of different areas uniquely defined in time and space. The resulting
engineering solutions (e.g., an optimum fairway) of course depend on the particular
choice of the measures and values.
323
traffic on the environment in a fairly general framework that accounts not only for
the local costs of accidents but also reveals the costs that become evident later, far
from the accident site through the propagation of various adverse impacts released
either occasionally or as a consequence of an accident. This concept is a generalization of the idea of applying emerging knowledge about semi-persistent current
patterns to minimize the consequences of potential accidents (e.g., by routing ship
traffic through specific areas, Soomere and Quak 2007). A decrease in the aggregate
environmental risk (see Eq. (1.1) in Chap. 1) is achieved preventively, before the accident happens. Similar applications can also be developed to specify how far from
the open ocean coast an economically feasible and environmentally friendly sailing
line should be located (Soomere et al. 2011c).
10.2 The Use of Lagrangian Trajectories of Current-Driven
Transport in the Surface Layer
The problem of identifying the least dangerous offshore areas can be simplified by
considering an oil spill as a cluster of persistent oil particles of neutral buoyancy
that are passively carried with surface currents. Then an approximate quantification
of the level of danger posed by oil spills can be obtained by the statistical analysis
of a large number of Lagrangian trajectories of single pollution particles released
to the sea at different time instants and locations (Abascal et al. 2010; Soomere
et al. 2010). An approximation of the areas of reduced risk is thus sought through
the extraction of information from a large pool of particular solutions of the direct
problem of propagation of oil particles.
The previous chapter demonstrated the potential of this approach to unveil the
presence of very rich, usually concealed internal structures of semi-persistent transport patterns in certain sea areas (Soomere et al. 2011d). This chapter focuses on
a subset of such patterns that may bring oil pollution close to the coast. The major
technical problems are the same: (i) how to extract useful information from the vast
amount of numerically simulated data, and (ii) how to realize an implementation for
the shipping or offshore industry based on the extracted information.
For simplicity, the potential of the technique is demonstrated here for the particular case when the trajectories of particles representing adverse impacts are locked in
the uppermost layer and thus reflect the behaviour of the lighter fractions of the oil
pollution. Although we only consider a few examples of simplified environmental
criteriaenvironmental criterion, the approach can be easily modified to account for
virtually any realistic set of measures or to be used in combination with practically
any set of values of different areas uniquely defined in time and space. The resulting
engineering solutions (e.g., an optimum fairway) of course depend on the particular
choice of the measures and values.