title: Towards improving the representation of beaching in oil spill models: a case study.
abstract: Oil-shoreline interaction (or "beaching" as commonly referred to in literature) is an issue of major concern in oil spill modeling, due to the significant environmental, social and economic importance of coastal areas. The present work studies the improvement of the representation of beaching brought by the introduction of the Oil Holding Capacity approach to estimate oil concentration on coast, along with new approaches for coast type assignment to shoreline segments and the calculation of permanent oil attachment to the coast. The above were tested for the Lebanon oil spill of 2006, using a modified version of the open-source oil spill model MEDSLIK-II. The modified model results were found to be in good agreement with field observations for the specific case study, and their comparison with the original model results denote the significant improvement in the fate of beached oil brought by the proposed changes.
authors.affiliation: CIRI - EC, Fluid Dynamics Research Unit, University of Bologna, Via del Lazzaretto 15/5, Bologna 40131, Italy. Electronic address: achilleas.samaras@unibo.it.
authors.forename: Achilleas G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Samaras
authors.affiliation: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Viale Aldo Moro 44, Bologna 40127, Italy.
authors.forename: Michela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: De Dominicis
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, Bologna 40136, Italy.
authors.forename: Renata
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Archetti
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, Bologna 40136, Italy.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lamberti
authors.affiliation: Corso di Scienze Ambientali, University of Bologna, Via S. Alberto 163, Ravenna 48123, Italy.
authors.forename: Nadia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pinardi
mesh_terms: D004777:Environment; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D007861:Lebanon; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010578:Petroleum / Q000032:analysis; D059392:Petroleum Pollution; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis; D014876:Water Pollution / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D010578:Petroleum; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
keywords: Beaching; Lebanon; MEDSLIK-II; Oil spill modeling; Oil–shoreline interaction