Oil spill modeling assessment of the 2021 Syrian oil spill using SAR imagery and multi-forcing forecasts

Oil spills in the marine field can have serious consequences for ecosystems, the environment, public health, the economy, and communities. Thus, following the spillage of 12,000 tons of crude oil from the fuel tanks of the Baniyas power plant in summer 2021, daily operational oil spill predictions were carried out  to predict the spill transport and fate in the Levantine basin, Eastern Mediterranean, supporting the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre for the Mediterranean  (REMPEC) and national response agencies. High frequency met-ocean forecasting data from the Copernicus Marine Monitoring Service (CMEMS), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), and regional models (SKIRON, CYCOFOS) were used, along with satellite-derived SAR data from EMSA-CSN and optical images from ESA to initiate the oil spill models and to determine the evolution, the extent and coverage of the spillages. Two up-to-date and advanced Lagrangian particle-tracking models, OpenDrift and MEDSLIK were used to assess and evaluate the oil spill predictions, generated by the aforementioned models, under a variety of met-ocean forcings and configurations, indicating the significant role of the high-resolution met-ocean data in the evolution of the oil spill trajectory. A number of quantitative metrics were used to evaluate the ability to adequately reproduce the oil spill spreading, by comparing the SAR observed oil spillages against the models results, in more detail.