Abstract
This proposal aims to integrate complementary research strengths at the National Civil Engineering Laboratory (LNEC, Portugal) and the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU, U.S.A.) towards the timely prediction of the fate of oil spills in coastal zones, in support of the early warning of these accidents and the corresponding risk assessment. The research will consist of (a) parallelization of an innovative oil spill code developed at LNEC; (b) cross-assessment of that code with a lower-complexity oil spill code developed at OHSU; (c) exploration of strategies that combine different complexity codes into an effective automated nowcast-forecast system for oil spills. Each partner will provide its respective oil spill code, and both partners will collaborate in (i) the parallelization of the LNEC code, (ii) the cross-assessment of the codes; and (iii) the pilot integration of the codes in a nowcast-forecast modeling system for one of the largest and most important estuaries in the USA – the Columbia River estuary.

The specific goals of the project are 1) to transfer LNEC's knowledge on oil spill and short wave codes to OHSU, 2) to continue to transfer OHSU's knowledge on nowcast-forecast systems and on parallelization of numerical codes to LNEC, 3) to explore, through the example of the Columbia River estuary, strategies that leverage the use of a hierarchy of codes of different complexity and cost into an highly effective predictive system to assist risk analysis and emergency response in the event of an oil spill and 4) to reinforce the existing working collaborations between LNEC and OHSU, through the identification of long-term common research goals and associated funding mechanisms. This project will be an integral component of the NSF Science and Technology Center for Coastal Margin Observation and Prediction (CMOP), a multi-institutional research center led by the American partner.

The project also involves a suite of educational activities at OHSU targeting LNEC’s researchers at different stages of their careers, and OHSU graduate students. These researchers and students will benefit from the mentoring of an interdisciplinary network of experts in estuarine and coastal analysis at both institutions, thereby gaining early career introductions to a wide range of areas such as numerical modeling, real-time observations, cyber-infrastructure, ecological research, and oil spill processes and their integration in ocean observing systems. Participation in workshops such as the annual ELCIRC/SELFE users’ meeting and the 12th Estuarine and Coastal Modeling Conference will provide an additional opportunity for these students to exchange their experience with other colleagues in the same field of research and to provide them with a network of contacts.

Research team:
LNEC - Anabela Oliveira, Alberto Azevedo, André Bustorff Fortunato and Gonçalo de Jesus
OHSU - António M. Baptista