Detection of oil spills and predicting its movement towards
Indian shores and assessment of extent of damage is an important activity
pre-requisite for management and oil spills and combating its ill effects. The Ministry of Earth Sciences has developed
this expertise under the programme on ‘Oil Spill Modelling and Mapping of Oil
Spill Risk Areas’. This was revealed by Union Minister for Science and technology
and Earth Sciences Shri Kapil Sibal today at a press conference in New Delhi.
He said the efforts will help protect the biodiversity along the coastal region
by timely assessing the nature and movement of the spill.
The
potential threat from operational or accidental oil spills from tankers and
other oil related activities could lead to largescale destruction of marine
life and property of the coastal region.
Oil spills in marine waters can damage social and economic systems as
well as the natural environment of surrounding seas which support valuable
fishing grounds, coastal ecosystems, Protected Marine National Park areas, long
recreational and tourist beaches. Protection of marine life, environmental
resources and property, prevention of loss of resources against oil spills
damages is a priority concern for oil spill management in India. The Western part of Indian Exclusive
Economic Zone (EEZ), Lakshadweep and the Nicobar Islands lie close to one of
the major oil tanker routes originating from the Gulf countries going to South
East Asia. Nearly 500 million tones of
crude oil are carried by about 3500 tankers along this route. Any major oil spill occurring in the Arabian
Sea and Bay of Bengal will lead to large scale damage to marine environment. The country has several ecologically
sensitive areas like Coral Reefs, mangroves and areas of unique biodiversity like turtle nesting grounds,
etc. To protect these areas against oil
spill damages, the country has a spill management programme since 1980. The important aspects include R&D in oil
spill detection, management, combating and legal aspects.
Under this
Oil Spill Modelling and Mapping of Oil Spill Risk Areas following are covered:
Development of oil spill trajectory model indicating the
movement of oil spills from Western and Eastern EEZ to the coastal areas of the
country.
Development area/habitat specific oil spill models for high
risk areas;
Operationalising the model during oil spill incidents.
PRIORITY AREAS THAT NEED PROTECTION
All the major ports along the Indian coastline, the locations
of Single Point Moorings (SPMs), and exploration, locations of oil refineries,
tanker movements, and areas pose risk of oil spills. The ecologically and
environmentally sensitive areas namely mangrove, coral reef, lagoons and turtle
nesting grounds; economically sensitive areas like tourist beaches
and archeologically sensitive areas such as Forts, ancient monuments
etc face various levels of oil spill threats.
Location of these areas and the extent of oil spill threat in these
areas is given in Annexure.
OIL SPILL TRAJECTORY MODEL
Integrated Coastal Marine Area Management Project Directorate
(ICMAM-PD), Chennai, an R&D unit of the Ministry has developed this model
which contains the following:
Tracking of oil spills from offshore to coastal areas of
India based on wind speed, wind velocity, sea current, etc.;
The ICMAM-PD has also developed habitat specific oil spill
model for Gulf of Kutch;
Strategies that need to be adopted for 19 high risk areas
(the work is going on for development of models for each specific habitat and
is expected to be completed by March 2009)
The oil spill
trajectory model for tracking oil spills has already been installed at Indian National Centre for
Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad, an autonomous institute under
this Ministry, which mans it on 24x7 basis along with interim tsunami warning
system. In case of an oil spill, INCOIS
will run this model and provide prediction along with recommendations to Coast
Guard, Disaster Management Office and other senior functionaries in the
Government.
HOW DOES THE MODEL WORK
Step 1: Detection of
loss of oil by tankers/spotting of oil spill by Coast Guard Surveillance Ship/Indian
Navy Passing Vessels/Maritime Rescue Center.
Step 2: Information on
location, quantity of oil spilled etc. passed on to INCOIS
Step 3: Model is run
by INCOIS based on oil type, location, bathymetry (depth of water) live data
of wind speed, wind direction, sea current, tide condition, etc.
Step 4: Likely path to
be taken by oil spill and shoreline to be affected are predicted by Model;
Step 5: Online
intimation sent to Coast Guard, concerned Port Authority, State Government,
MHA, NDMA, State Pollution Control Board, etc.
The path and
affected areas are further refined every three hours or as required based on
latest data on wind speed & wind direction.
Position of oil
spill will also be tracked based on satellite picture by INCOIS and/or by
aerial survey by Coast Guard.
BENEFITS
Timely deployment of booms to prevent movement of oil to sensitive
coastal habitats (corals, mangroves, beaches, lagoons) and damage to marine
life;
Timely information to industries/power plants which have sea
water intake system for cooling purposes, etc. so that their systems are not
damaged.
Estimation of loss of resources, which will help in claiming
compensation.
PRA/AT
(Release ID :21938)