Study on Improvement of Oil Spill Prediction Using Satellite Data and Oil-spill Model: Hebei Spirit Oil Spill

In the case of oil spill accident at sea, information concerning the movement of spilled oil is important in making response strategies. Aircrafts and the satellites have been utilized for monitoring of spilled oil. In these days, numerical models are using to predict the movement of the spilled oil. In the future a coupling method of modeling and remote sensing data should be needed to predict more correctly the spilled oil. The purpose of this paper is to present an application of satellite image data to an oil spill prediction model as an initial condition. Environmental Fluid Dynamics Computer Code (EFDC) was used to predict the movement of the oil spilled from Hebei Spirit incident occurred in Taean coastal area on December 7,2007. In order to make the model initial condition and to compare the model results, two satellite images, KOMPSAT-2 MSC and ENVISAT ASAR obtained on December 8 and 11, were used during the period of the oil spill incident. The model results showed an improvement for the prediction of the spilled oil by using the initial condition deduced from satellite image data than the initial condition specified at the oil spill incident site in the respects of the distributed spilled area.