Modeling the Agia Zoni II tanker oil spill in Saronic Gulf, Greece.

We employed GNOME to simulate the oil spill due to the sinking of the tanker "Agia Zoni ΙΙ" in September 2017 in Saronic Gulf. We performed simulations using various combinations of wind and current input, and values of the GNOME parameters, and compared the simulated oil spill trajectories with coastal pollution and satellite data. The best scenario, i.e., the combination that showed the most satisfactory agreement with field data, uses wind data from one of the closest meteorological stations, calculated currents by a hydrodynamic model and default values of the parameters, except for the windage and the refloat half-life whose proposed values are 3-4 % and 6 h, respectively. Neglecting the effect of the wind in the best scenario worsened the agreement. Mass balance results depicted that approximately 47 % of the total 500 tons of the oil spill ended up on the coastline of Attica peninsula and Salamina Island.

Disutility analysis of oil spills: graphs and trends.

This paper reports the results of an analysis of oil spill cost data assembled from a worldwide pollution database that mainly includes data from the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund. The purpose of the study is to analyze the conditions of marine pollution accidents and the factors that impact the costs of oil spills worldwide. The accidents are classified into categories based on their characteristics, and the cases are compared using charts to show how the costs are affected under all conditions. This study can be used as a helpful reference for developing a detailed statistical model that is capable of reliably and realistically estimating the total costs of oil spills. To illustrate the differences identified by this statistical analysis, the results are compared with the results of previous studies, and the findings are discussed.

An empirical analysis of IOPCF oil spill cost data.

This paper reports on recent analysis of oil spill cost data assembled by the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPCF). Regression analyses of clean-up costs and total costs have been carried out, after taking care to convert to current prices and remove outliers. In the first place, the results of this analysis have been useful in the context of the ongoing discussion within the International Maritime Organization (IMO) on environmental risk evaluation criteria. Furthermore, these results can be useful in estimating the benefit of regulations that deal with the protection of marine environment and oil pollution prevention.

A high-level synthesis of oil spill response equipment and countermeasures.

This paper presents an operational synthesis of major oil spill response methods (mechanical, chemical, etc.) and the corresponding oil response equipment for sea context (booms, skimmers, etc.). We focus on important features of oil spill response, in order to formulate a decision-based database, capable of supporting the development of a complete oil spill response operation. Moreover, we classify these findings and introduce simple formatting and standards to supply predictive tools for oil spill models. The actual goal of this paper is to come up with a decision-driven process, which can provide for a realistic choice of oil spill response equipment in the design of the primary oil response phase. This is intended to lead to a prompt, logical, and well-prepared oil spill response operation satisfying time and cost criteria and protecting the marine environment.

Spill accident modeling: a critical survey of the event-decision network in the context of IMO's formal safety assessment.

In this paper, we present the relationship between an oil spill-assessing approach, namely the event-decision network (EDN) and the formal safety assessment (FSA) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). We focus on various points at which the Network incorporates basic features of the FSA in order to formulate a state-of-the-art, original strategic tool. In keeping with a safety-friendly effort, we developed the EDN, which implements a scenario-driven, generic tree framework. Moreover, the IMO, under the umbrella of decision-making, has introduced FSA, which is a systematic methodology for enhanced maritime safety by using risk and cost/benefit criteria. It is of interest to describe the introduced spill-scenario analysis/simulation and to pinpoint its interconnections with the aforementioned official instrument. Among other things, the goal of such a task is the enhancement of marine safety and the subsequent protection of seas from oil spills.