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Keramea, P., Kokkos, N., Zodiatis, G., Sylaios, G., Coppini, G., Peña, J., Benjumeda Herreros, P., Sepp-Neves, A.A., Lardner, R., Liubartseva, S., Soloviev, D., Scuro, M., Nicolaidis, A. and Viola, F. (2023) Oil Spill Modeling Assessment of the 2021 Syrian Oil Spill Using SAR Imagery and Multi-Forcing Forecasts. EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, 23-28 April 2023, EGU23-1573.
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-1573

has been cited by the following article:

• TITLE: Modeling Seabed-Origin Oil Spills Using OpenOil: Case Studies from the Mediterranean Sea

  AUTHORS: Vassilios Papaioannou, Christos G.E. Anagnostopoulos, Konstantinos Vlachos, Anastasia Moumtzidou, Ilias Gialampoukidis, Stefanos Vrochidis, Ioannis Kompatsiaris

  KEYWORDS: Seabed Oil Spill, Oil Weathering, Openoil, Numerical Simulations, Lagrangian Modeling, Mediterranean Spills

  JOURNAL NAME: Open Journal of Marine Science, Vol.15 No.3, July 10, 2025

  ABSTRACT: Seabed-origin oil spills pose distinct challenges in marine pollution management due to their complex transport dynamics and weathering processes. This study applies the OpenDrift’s OpenOil module to simulate the transport and fate of oil in two seabed-origin spill scenarios: (a) the 2019 Baniyas refinery spill in Syria, resulting from leakage in underwater pipelines, and (b) a natural oil seep near Zakynthos, Greece (2017), where hydrocarbons naturally escape from the seafloor. The Baniyas spill was used as a validation case, integrating Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and open-source atmospheric and marine data derived from the Climate Change and Copernicus Marine services to refine model calibration. The Zakynthos seep was analyzed under controlled conditions to assess the abilities of the OpenOil module to simulate naturally occurring oil slicks. Key findings indicate that oil density plays a critical role in evaporation dynamics. Simulations revealed that oils above a specific density threshold showed negligible evaporation, remaining as persistent slicks in the water column, whereas lighter oils exhibited substantial evaporation rates, significantly altering their dispersion behavior.