The Mediterranean Decision Support System for Marine Safety dedicated to oil slicks predictions

The risk from oil spill pollution in the Mediterranean is high due to the heavy traffic of merchantvessels for transporting oil and gas and to the increasing coastal and offshore installations related tothe oil industry in general. The basic response to major oil spills includes different measures andequipment. However, in order to make optimal use of such devices and to assist the responseagencies, oil spill and trajectory models are used, in order to provide predictions of the drift andweathering of the oil slicks. During the past years, the development of the MyOcean service (todayCopernicus Marine Environmental Monitoring Service, CMEMS) and of the associated nationaldownscaled ones of the Mediterranean Operational Network for the Global Ocean ObservingSystem (MONGOOS) network, made possible to provide operational oceanographic forecastingdata to suit the oil spill predictions. The Copernicus marine service, together with the ability todetect oil slicks using SAR satellite images, initiated the implementation of a multi modelintegrated downstream oil spill prediction system in the Mediterranean to support in near real timethe maritime safety. The implementation of the system was carried out in the frame of theMediterranean Decision Support System for Marine Safety (MEDESS-4MS) project, which isdedicated to the response agencies from all the riparian countries and to key users, such asREMPEC, EMSA.