Despite considerable efforts to improve scientific understanding and risk management, governments and businesses remain insufficiently prepared to confront large oil spills considered to be the so called ‘high-impact low-probability’ disasters. To alleviate this problem, we focus on the historical HAVEN oil spill (off the Port of Genoa, 1991) recognized not only as the largest shipwreck in the European waters, but also as one of the worst oil pollution cases in the Med. We reconstruct this spill with the Lagrangian oil spill model MEDSLIK-II forced by the to-date high resolution meteo-oceanographic datasets. Moreover, we run the HAVEN oil spill scenario stochastically sampling virtual spills randomly in space and time. The results are presented as the pollution hazard indices in probabilistic terms, which is supposed to be a representative indicator of future accidents. The highest indices are found in the Alboran Sea, Algerian and Liguro-Provençal subbasins, and in the center of the Ionian Sea. Conversely, the southern part of the Ionian, the areas east of Sardinia and west of Corsica, the Gulf of Lion, the northern Adriatic, and north-eastern Aegean Sea do not reveal high hazards.
Global Coastal Ocean Division, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-0219-7543
Global Coastal Ocean Division, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0003-3664-3983
Département Prévision Marine et Océanographique, France - ORCID: 0000-0002-1111-034X
Global Coastal Ocean Division, Italy - ORCID: 0009-0001-5640-5539
Chapter Title
Modeling the high-impact-low-probability oil spills in the Mediterranean
Authors
Svitlana Liubartseva, Giovanni Coppini, Pierre Daniel, Megi Hoxhaj
Language
Italian
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0556-6.79
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2024
Copyright Information
© 2024 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Tenth International Symposium Monitoring of Mediterranean Coastal Areas: Problems and Measurement Techniques
Book Subtitle
Livorno (Italy) 11th-13th June 2024
Editors
Laura Bonora, Marcantonio Catelani, Matteo De Vincenzi, Giorgio Matteucci
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2024
Copyright Information
© 2024 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0556-6
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0556-6
eISBN (xml)
979-12-215-0557-3
Series Title
Monitoring of Mediterranean Coastal Areas: Problems and Measurement Techniques
Series E-ISSN
2975-0288