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REPOMTS
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Prritcd ItrCrcat l}lrtein
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G PcrgertonPrcssLtd.

A New Techniqueto EstimateInitial

Spill SizeUsing a Modified Fay-type
SpreadingFormula
W.J.LEHR.R.J.FRAGA..M. S.BELEN andH. M. CEKIRCE
Research
VbterantlEnvironmentDit'isiott, andMinemls,Dhaltmn,SaudiAmbia
Institute,IJniwniryof Petmleum

Estimatingoil spill size is important for a varietyof sensing techniques (Axelsson& Ohlsson,1973;White&
economic, environmentaland legal reasons.One Schmidt,1983).Unfortunatelytheyoftenrequireappar-
attemptto determineoil spill sizeby visuallyassessing atus which is not readilyavailableduring acrualspills.
the extentof colourregimesin the spill andmultiplying Attemptingto estimateoil thicknessby visualobserva-
the areasof theseregimesby thicknessvaluesleadsto don and normal photographyaloneruns into several
unsatisfactoryresults.Previouseflorts to estimateoil difficulties, andthereis considerable disputein thelitera-
spill size by inverting spreading using formulae like rure about the accuracy of this method (Munday,1971;
thoseof Blokker and Fay have also incurred difficulties Estes et al., 1973)- The other indirect methodof esti-
relatedto environmcntal conditions which influence mating oil spill volume involves inverting standard
spill spreadrate.Data obtained during a series of field oil-spreading formulas so that initial spill volume can be
experiments, conducted offtheSaudiArabian coastline determined from the present spill area. Two frequently
duringthe fall of 1982,wereusedto devisea modifica- used formulasare those b1' Blokker (1961) and Fay
tion of Fay's spreadingformula. The results agree (1971).Sincea Fay-typeformulawill be utilizedlaterin
signilicantlybetter with the obsenedareaso[ the oil this paper,a brief reviewof the Fay model is provided.
spill than Fa1"soriginalformula.The modiliedareafor- Fay dividesspreadinginto threephasesu'itheachphase
mula is then invertedto obtain a formula for initial determinedby dominantspreadingand retardingforce
volumespilled. on the slick. The first phase,known as gravity-inertial
spreading,lastsonly a few minutesfor all exceptthe lar-
An accurateestimateof the sizeof an oil spill is import- gest spills.The last phase,the surfacetension-viscous
ant for severalreasons. Spill size*'ill help to determine spreading, takesplaceaftertheslickhasbadlyweathered
the typeof clean-upresponse required, theoverallpollu- and may have dispersedor brokeninto separateslicks.
tion effect on the environment,and the amount of Therefore, most usefulphasefor estimatingoil spill the
compensation owedby thePartyresponsible for thespill. sizeis tle secondphasekno*'n asgral'ity-r'iscous spread-
In somecircumstances, an accurateestimateis provided ing. The formula for thisphase is:
from an examinationof the spill sourceas,for example, A:k(s V f'2 q"t l(p*-p)/ p"llt'' (1)
the knou'ncapacityof an oil tanlierbeforeit is ruprured
or theproductionrateof a leakingoffshoreu'ell.In other where A:area of slick, ggravitational acceleration,
circumstancEs,however, the spill source may be l':initial volumeof slick,t:time, v*:kinematicviscos-
unlinownor the initial spill volumemay be a matterof ity of water, po:oil density,p*:u'ater density,and
dispute.In such casesindirect methods of estimating l:constant.
spillsizemustbe used. Inverting this formula provides an estimateof the
These indirect methods fall roughJy into two catego- initialspillvolumebasedon theobserved area.Fielddata
ries: from actual spills (Murray, 1'972: Conomos,197 4) show
One method attempts to determine the thickness of that Fay's theory greatly underestimates slick growth.
variousregimesin the slick.When these*ricknesses are Hencethecorresponding volumeestimates wouldbe too
multipliedby the areasof the corresPonding regimesand large.
the resulting regime volumes are sulruned, an estimateof
the total current volume is produced. From this volume,
it is possible to extrapolate back to an initial volume if a ExperimentDesign
suitableweatheringalgorithmsuchas that of Mackay er In orderto determinethe bestwayto estimateoil spill
al. (1981) is utilized. Quite sophisticated techniques have size by visual methods,a seriesof test spills was con- tc
been developed to estimate Spill rhickness by remote ducted by the end of 1982 in partsof the Arabian Gulf A
adjacentto the SaudiArabiancoastline. Parameters for
' D e p a r t m e n t o f M a t h e m a t i c a lS c i e n c e . thespillsare presented in Table1.

'1.1
 TABLE I 20
Spillparameters r9
r8
Initialsize@arrels) 1 3 .0 9 19.60 51.07 t7 T h i c k n e s s- s h e e n
Oiltype Hcavy Light Light Toto( - tight oit
r6
S p i l l d a t e1,9 8 2 5 December l2 December?l December
Releasetime 8 : 2 5a . m . r5
8 : 5 9a . m . 9 : 2 0a . m .
Duration(min) l2l. 148' 329 l4

Wind direction ESE NW NW r3

Wind s5rccd(knots) l5 l4 10 t2
Waveheight(feet) 2-3 1-2 l-z tl T
Seatemperature 70 68 62 r)(
fF) E ro
r"

'Areameasurements timeperiod.
onlyforshorter { 9
t

lD\" *
All spillswer6madefrom tanhsfastened to theaft deck
of a 100-foot workboat. The oil was gravitydriven
througha 1S-footlong pipe of 3-inchdiameter.The end
3
of the pipe wasfitted with a funnelheld horizontalto the 2
water surfaceto reduceentrainmentof the oil in the I

water.During the 51-barrelspill, an au.riliary1i-inch o

lo 35 60 85 ilO r35 160 r85 2tO 235 260 285 3tO 335 4@
diameterpipewasalsoused. Time (min)
As hasbeenreportedin otherspills(Jeffery,1973,and Fig. 2 Plot of thicknessmeasurementsversus time for the
sheen from
NAS, 1975), the oil is separated into tu'o major regimes, a l l l i g h t A r a b i a n c r u d e t e s ts p i l l s .
a thick 'black oil' regimeand a thin 'sheen'regime.In
some siruations,a third regimewhich containedheavy
sheenmixedwith smallspotsof blackand brown oil was Results
also noticed.The third region was more pronounced The correlationbetweencolour and thicknessfor the
whenthe slickwasobservedat low altitudes. differentslick regimeswas poor. Figure I presentsthe
Thicknessmeasurements were made by a two-man black regime thicknessmeasurementsfor all the test
surfacecrewoperatingin a rubberdinghylaunchedfrom spillsinvolvingArabianLightcrude.As canbe seenfrom
the workboatshortlybeforeeachspill commenced. The the figure,therewasconsiderablescatter,particularlyat
samplerusedto measurethicknessin the variouscolour earlytimesin the durationof the spill.The Fratio (the
regimeswas adaptedfrom a prototypedevelopedby ratio of the regressionmean squaresto residualmean
Esteset al. (1973). squares)for the leastsquarescurvein the figurewas5.4.
Each spill wasphotographedthroughoutits duration Similar circumstances prevailedin the sheenregime
by a WILD brand camerain an aerialsurv'eyplanefl)nng (Fig. 2, Fratio:6) -d the test spill involvingArabian
at altirudeswhich variedfrom 2500 feet to 9500 feet, Heary crude lelded the same type of results.Thus,
depending on spillsizeandcloudcover.The photographs colour is an imprecisemeasureof slick thicknessand
were electronically scanned and computationally hencevolume.It migiht,perhaps,be of someusefor old
analysedand areacalculations resultingfrom this analy- weatheredspills where the thickness of the colour
sis werecomparedwith standardoil-spreadingformulas regimesare presumedto have approachedan equilib-
(I-ehretal., 1984). rium value.From the experimental.spills,reasonable
equilibriumvaluesrnightbe 100 pm for theblackregime
2000 and 5 pm for the sheen.
t900 Use of Fay'sspreadalgorithmsto estirnatespill size
'800 alsoprovedinaccuratesincethe acrualspreadrate was
t700 T h i c k n e s s- b ( o c k
much fasterthan the spreadrate predictedfrom Fay's
r600 Totot- tight oit
t50c
method. [n fact,for the 51-barrelspill of ArabianLight
r400 crude, the Fay formula underestimated the spill sizeby
t3@ more than an order of magnirude pehr et al., 1984)and
r200 did not evenmatchthe spreadrate of the smallerblack
iloo regimearea(Fig.3).Thusinitial spill sizeestimates based
E ro@ on inverting Fay'sformula would give a seriousover-
900
800
estimateof initialvolume.
700
600
500 Developmentof RevisedFay Formula
4oO
It was hypothesizedthat the reason that the Fay
300
zffi
formula worked so poorly is that it is designedto deal
I|.
with the idealizedcaseof a circularslickpn calmseas.In
r@
rl* r
o
ro 35 60 85 ilO r 3 5 1 6 0 r 8 5 z t o 2 3 5 2 6 0 2 8 5 3tO 335 4oo
an acrualspill, environmentalconditionsplay a crucial tc
Time (min) role in determiningslick area and shape.One very 5

Fig. I Plot of thickness measurements vcrsus time for t h e b l a c k o i l importantfactoris the wind with all the field testsshow-
regime from all light Arabian crude test spills. ing that the oil slicktendedto be more or lesselliptical

3?7
 TABLE 2
90 Spillsizeestimates
ri tO Time Actual Volumeprediction Volume
70 Type of oil after volumeFaygravityviscous predicted
relcase formula by equation6
o60 (rnin) (barrets) (banels) (banels)
o
o50 '19.6
Arabian light 30 73 0.9
x
N40
E Arabian heavy 47 l3.l 534 r 5. 9
30
Arabian ligfrt 79 5l.l 799 41.7
20
to Arabian light 295 5l.l 2369 78.6

35 60 8s rro 'i?-lo,
rt" , t in min. and areain 103m2,the empiricallydetermined
valuesfor theotherconstants are
Fig.3 Plor of blackoil areafor rhe 5l barrelspill comparedto Fay
modelpredictionof totalslickarea.
c- 1/3,6-4/3, Cr- 1.7and Q- 0.03.
of these
ratherthan circularin shape,with the major axisoriented Equation 2 can be written by incorporation
in the directionof thewind. valuesas:
Hence a new type of Fay formula was proposed as
A:2.27 l(p*-p")/p"12/3lr2/3rtlz
follows:
1. The areaof the slickcan bestbe represented as an +0.04 l(p*-p.)/p"lt/3 Vt/3 W4/3L (s)
ellipsewith area Including the extra wind term greatly improved the
A:(r/\ QR (2) agreementbetu'eenpredictedand acrualareafor the test
spills.Figure4 presentsthe resultsfor the 5 1-barrelspill
where QandR arethelengthsof the minor and major axes of ArabianLigtrtcrude.
of the ellipticalslickrespectively. Poorer correspondence betweenthe formula and the
2.The lengthof the minor axis O is prgportionalto a acrual area was observedfor the 20-barrel spill of
productof suitablepowersof the relativedensitydiffer- ArabianLight crude.For thisspill,strongcurrentscoin-
ence,initialspill volumeand time,i.e. cidedwith the wind directionto producea long narrow
Q:Crl(p*-p")/P.|" V t' (3) spill with small area.Sincethe currentsare often not
known in the caseof acfualspill incidents,their effects
where Cr, d, p and Y are positiveconstantsto be deter' are not incorporatedin the formula and their omission,
mined. in this case,tendsto overestimate the areaof the spill.
3. The lengthof the major axisR is proportionalto a The authorsalso attempted correlateother easily
to
sum of the pioduct in Equarion2 anda product of suit- determinedslick parameters,such as the black regime
able powersof wind W attdtime t, i-e. area or the ratio of black to sheen,to initial spill size;
however,noneshowedasgooda correspondence as the
R:G I@*-p")/P,lvef+qw6 t'
total spillarea.
where G, 6 and e are positiveconstantsto be deter-
mined.
For the revised formula to reduce to a Fay-type Techniqueto EstimateSPill Size
^l
formula for the zero-windcase,the constantsp and are Equation5 canbe invertedto givean algorithmto pre-
set as g:7/3 and'p=1/4.Sincein all the testspillsthe dict initial spill volumebasedon oil density,wind speed,
dependence of areaon timewasnearlylinear,it wascon- time of spill andsPillarea:
ctuded thatg:3/4. With wind speedmiasured in knots,
V:lP"/ (P*- p,)l l(l /2b?)[-b, * (F'+4 Abt)"t]]' (6)
rooo whereb,:0.04 W4/3t
900 Areo predictionfor 5l borret spil.t
and h:2.27 l/2
800
Table 2 comparesthe resultsof Equation 6 with the
o 7o,0 resultsobtainedby invertingthe Fay gravity-viscousfor-
o
9 600 mula.As will be noticed,neitherformulaworked well in
x
N
E
500
estimatingthe 2O-banelArabian Light spill. The diffi-
400 culty in uling the new forrnulafor this spill has already
300 P r e di c t e d
Meosured
been mentioned.For the other entriesin the table,the
2c,0 new formula obviouslygivesa much better prediction
t@
than the useof the FaYformula. .
e0
5i eo g5 no t35 t6o 185 2lo 235 260 283 This researcheffort was suPPortedby the Environmental Affairs A
Time (min) Departmentof theArabianAmericanOil CompanyundertheUniver-
Fig. 4 Plot of total slickareacomparedto predictedareaof modificd sity of Petroleumand Mincrals,RescarchlnstituteagreementNo.
Fay formula. l s805/00.

:,)8
A r c l s s o n , s . & o h t s s o n , E . ( 1 9 7 3 ) .R c m ( ) t es e n s i n go f o i l s l i c k s .A m b i o .
bhr, W.J.,Cekirgc,H. M.,Fraga,R.J.& Bclen,M' S.(!9q4).Eqpirical
70-76. srudiesof the sprc:dingof oil spills,oil and pctrochemicalpollution.Oil
B l o k k c r , P . c . ( 1 9 6 4 ) .S p r e a d i n ga n d c v a p o r a t i o no f p c t r o l e u m p r o d u c t s
and knoche micaI Polluti on, in press.
on watcr. p'rucceiings of the Ninth Intemational Harbor Conference.
Mackay,D.,pererson, mod;l of oil
S.& Trulcl,k.l t lA t ). A mathcmatic.al
spill'bchaviour. Repo( for Environmcntalcontrol Directorate,
Antwcrp. '
c o n o m o s , T . J . ( 1 9 7 4 ) .M o v c m e n t o f s p i l l e do i l a s p r c d i c t c d b y e s l u a n n c
Canada.
Munday, J. ( l97l OitSIicksrudies Ltsing Photogmphic and_Multispectrul
nontidaf drift. Limnol. Oceanogr.,70, 522-530. ).
Scaine,bara.'P',ccedings ol the S"renthIntemationalSS,mposium on
E s t c s ,J . E . , M i k o l a y , P . C . , T h a m a n , R ' R . & S a n g c r 'L ' W ' ( l 9 7 3 ) ' D e r c r -
u s i n g c o - o r d i n a t c da i r b o r n c a n d s u r f a c c Re,note.sensing of Envircnmenr, Univcrsiryof Michigan'Ann Arbor,
mination of marinc o i l s p i l t s
sampling data. Pnceedihgs of the Joint conference on Pr*tntion and Michigan, p. 1027.
p'.(lg7Z). Turbulentdiffusionof oil in the ocean'Limnol.
C o i t r u l - o f O 1 S p i l b , p p - . l l 7 - 1 2 5 . A m c r i c a n P c t r o l e u m I n s t i t u t e . Murray,3.
W a s h i n g t o n ,D . C . Oceanogr.,2 7, 651-660.
physical Pmcesses in the Sprcad of Oilon a tAbterSurfa<'e. NationalAcademy of Scicnccs(1975).Petruleunin theMarineEnvimn'
Fay, J. A. (i971 ).
'pnceetlings'of
ie Joint Conference on Praention and Contrul of Oil menr. NAS, Washington, D.C.
, in Oil
.tpi//i, pp.7Oi-a08. American Petroleum lnstitute, Washington, DC.
Whitc,J. R. & Schmidi,R. E. (1983).IJnircdSnrcsGuordPrcgrcss
o f o i l a t s e a spill surwillance. Prcceedingsof 1983Oil spill Conference.pp. 341-
J e f f c r y ,f . C . 1 f l Z f l . L a r g e - s c a l e x p c r i m c n t so n t h e s p r c a d i n g
of the_JointCo\fer- 344.AmcricanPctrolcum Institutc, Washington, D'C'
-a airrpp.arance by natural fac1o11, P_roceedings
ence on Prevntion and contnl of oil spills, pp.469-414. Amcrican
P e t r o l c u mI n s t i t u t c ,W a s h i n g t o n ,D . C .

(xi: 5' -126Xl84 s.1.(X

l+(1.(
Xr
h l u r i n c P u l l u t i o u B u l l c t i t t , V o l , | . 5 .N o . 9 . p p . 3 2 9 - 1 3 { ' 1 9 8 ' t O Pcrgamon PrcsrLtd.
Printcd in Crcat Britain

SynopticSurvey_onDissolvedTiace
Metal LevelsinBaltic SurfaceWaters
.
KLAUS KREMLING ANdHARALD PETERSEN .
Disternbrcoker Weg20,D-23N Kiel 1, FederalRepublicof Germany
Irctitutfir lvleeresku:nde,

A total of 95 surfacen'atersamples(6 m depth) was The presentresearchwas undertakenin an attempt to

collectedduringa transectfromthe BothnianBayto Kiel provide,by meansof a new samplingtechnique,reliable
betrneen 28 Augustand 5 september1982. This report brtr on ttre surfacewater distributionof dissolvedZn,
presentsthe dissolvedtrace metal (<0.4 prm)and the Cd, Cu, Ni, Fe, Mn and Al. The major questionsto be
associatedh1'drographic and nutrient data. Except for answeredare:(i) do significantconcentrationdifferences
aluminium,all othermetalsdetermin ed (Zn, Cd,Cu, Ni, actuallyexistin the Baltic subregions?(ii) how largeare
Fe, Mn) showeda rather homogeneousdistribution the spatialfluctuations'*ithinthe differentareasand with
r.rpi.t to the prevailinghydrochemical siruation?(iii)
within the subregions,n'ith highest values-in the
th... any marked correlations with salinity?
BothnianBa1'(exceptfor NIn) and net variationsof the
"r.
individualsamplesof about2,0%- Cadmium,copperand
nicket revealconsen'ativebehaviourwhen valuesfrom
this study and literaturedata from the Kattegatand Methodsof SamPlingand AnalYsis
North Seaareaareplottedagainstsalinity.
Seawater samples were collected from the R/V
Balticwatersshowa broaddiversityin chemicalproper- Poseidonin a horizontaltransectfrom the BothnianBay
tiesexhibitedby the horizontalsalinityrangefrom almost to Kielberween28 Augustand5 September1982.Loca-
zero in the Bothnian Bay to nearly ocean water in the tions of the 95 stationsare givenin Fig. I togetherwith
Skagerrakarea, and by the anoxic conditions in the the Baltic Sea subregions(accordingto wattenberg,
deeperlayers(voipio,1981).Anessential stepin under- lg4g).To savetime andto avoidpossiblecontamination,
,tunding the' geochemical processes of potential the waterwas pumpedfrom 6 m depth (at 0.3 t'h-t)
is to gain a knowledge on throughpolyethylenetubing(from a towedstainless steel
pollutantsin thiJenvironment
A great many sheilJuspendedunderneaththe hull) while the ship was
its distributionand chemical behaviour.
steaming.All subsamplesfor trace metal analysiswere
dataassociated with tracemetaloccurrencein the Baltic
watershasbeenrepofied,but only a smallfractioncanbe pr.ssutJ filtered throughprecleaned0.4 pm Nuclepore
hlt"rt (,*ith N2 on cleanbenches).The filtrateswereacid-
consideredreliable,as criricallyreviewedby Briigmann
(' 1 e 8 1 ) . ified by addition of subboiledHNOr to I final pH of
Since the analyticaltechniqueshave been refined, 1.7,and storedin 500 cmr quary bottlesat 5'C
more well "round-
until analysis.
trace rnetaldistributionsapPearincreasingJy
definedand systematic. A detailed srudy on the beha- zinc was analysedby differentialpulseanodicstrip-
elements in stagnant Baltic ping voltammetryat a Processing pH between5 and 6'
viour of redox-dependent
watershas beenpresented recently (l(remling' 1983b)' baJmium, copper,nickel and iron were subjectedto a

329