Effects of EDDY currents on the transport and fate of oil spills in the strait of Istanbul and the golden horn

Abstract

Strait of Istanbul is a long narrow channel with high potential of maritime accidents due heavy traffic. The Golden Horn estuary is located at the southern part of the strait can be contaminated in the case of main strait accidents. The long-lasting oil spills in the closed and calm circulating currents increase the environmental impacts. In order to model the fate of oil spill events at Golden Horn, the complex hydrodynamics of strait domain is numerically modeled by Environmental Fluid Dynamic Code (EPA). Simulation attains comprehensive information of oil spills in accordance to short term hydrodynamic conditions such as two-layer flow, lower layer and upper layer blockage conditions. The measured ADCP and CTD data are used as the boundary condition and validating data in the model. The historical ship accident scenarios are used to simulate the transport of oil spill in the main strait and Golden Horn.. The model results present the comprehensive time-varying concentration of contamination for the different hydrodynamic structures of the strait of Istanbul and Golden Horn junction. Hence, according to hydrodynamic parameters preliminary or instantaneous actions can be managed in the case of accident maritime accident to reduce the environmental impacts at the strait.