Newletter

In light of recent natural and man-made disasters the ability to quickly respond is becoming more urgent than ever. Emergency response teams, rescue units, police and firefighters all need crucial and timely data to perform their jobs when time is of the essence and lives are on the line. By creating interoperability between systems this can be made possbile. It allows software and hardware on different servers from different vendors to share data, read and write the same file formats and use the same protocols, without special effort on the part of the user.

ASA develops computer models which simulate physical, chemical, and biological processes which can not only solve environmental problems but can also be applied to disaster situations on land or sea. These intuitive modeling systems are integrated with commercially validated weather products for accurate and up to date conditions. The results of these models can be consumed by other 3rd party software and this interoperability allows the systems to be used on desktop PCs, laptops, as well as hand held devices with a simple web browser.

ASA demostrated interoperability in action at the recent GITA (Geospatial Information and Technology Association) conference held in April. During the opening session attendees were treated to a fictional, but very possible, scenario of an oil tanker and benzene chemical tanker collision in Tampa Bay. This scenario was presented by ASA's Eoin Howlett. Eoin simulated the resulting oil spill and benzene explosion using ASA's OILMAP (oil spill) and AIRMAP (atmospheric dispersion) modeling systems to determine the fate and transport of the spilled oil and the benzene plume at hourly increments. The models were integrated with real-time weather data, and an accurate prediction of the benzene plume and spill trajectory was achieved within 2 minutes. Eoin impressed the audience by showing how the program allows emergency workers to automatically connect to data and plan their actions more efficiently than ever before. By using open standards, ESRI showed that the new ArcGIS Explorer could consume the results to show a 3D view of the region and buildings impacted by the plume.

Over 1500 people attended the Interoperability demonstration

ASA in Vanity Fair

ASA's flood modeling was featured in Vanity Fair's first environmental Green issue (May 2006). Images are artist renditions of flooding predictions performed by ASA.

For the full article in Vanity Fair please click here

Oil spill fate and transport modeling is currently being used by the California Department of Fish and Game Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR) to develop the time and spatial scales, and equipment needs for a formal Dispersed Oil Monitoring Plan. This will document water column hydrocarbon concentrations, potentially exposed organisms (e.g., zooplankton), and the impacts of oil spills with and without the use of dispersants. To this end, California OSPR and the University of New Hampshire Coastal Response Research Center have funded four field experiments to develop and test the operational framework for repeated sampling of dispersed oil plumes, which include release and tracking of fluorescein dye and subsurface drogues. During the third week of March, Deborah French McCay participated in the second cruise off San Diego. ASA is developing algorithms quantifying small scale transport processes and associated uncertainty of the estimates for inclusion in oil fates models. This study will enable more accurate estimates of water column hydrocarbon concentrations to be made.

Maritime Drill in Gijon, Spain

The Spanish Maritime Safety and Rescue Agency (SASEMAR)conducted a maritime drill exercise in Gijon, Spain on 22-24 May. Several national and regional agencies participated, deploying vessels, aircraft and anti-pollution equipment in response to a virtual oil spill. Several drifting buoys were released to represent the surface movement of the virtual pollutant. Wind and currents forecasts were provided by the ESEOO Project (an implementation of the Spanish Operational Oceanography system). The Monitoring and Prediction Unit (USYP) oversaw the integration of response equipment locations with observations and forecasts of metocean conditions and the drifting buoy trajectories.

ASA's Eric Comerma was an invited participant in the exercise. He used a demonstration version of OILMAP that was capable of integrating all the information useful to the responders: ESEOO metocean data forecasts, the positions of drifting buoys and the predicted oil spill. SASEMAR plans to upgrade its current versions of OILMAP and SARMAP to allow the importation on-line of ESEOO wind and currents forecasts, among other features.

OILMAP integrates predicted spill and drifitng buoy trajectories with metocean data

• Craig Swanson participated in an LNG-related workshop, U.S. Seawater Vaporization: Getting to Resolution, in Houston, TX on 25 January. His presentation, "Potential Effects on Marine Biota from Seawater Use at LNG Terminals" focused on ASA's experience in evaluating entrainment and impingement losses for proposed LNG regasification terminals in the Gulf of Mexico and discussed what ASA sees as potential improvements in the analysis methodologies to provide more accurate estimates of biological effects. Deborah French McCay and Nicole Whittier were joint authors.

• Xiongping Zhang attended the SURA SCOOP meeting in Miami, FL, 7-9 February. Attendants discussed the integrated ocean prediction system using the latest computer and GIS technology. Xiongping is one of the lead scientists working on the visualization of numerical hydrodynamic models using OGC WMS in version 1 and 2 of the SCOOP project.

• Kelly Knee presented an animation of the 100-year flood along the Blackstone River at the Blackstone Alert: 21st Century Flood Mitigation Forum held on 9 March in Lincoln, RI. The animation combined flood plain data from both MassGIS and RIGIS with Google Earth's animation capabilities.

• Sasha Zigic participated in ConocoPhillips Asia-Pacific Incident Management Assist Team (IMAT) training in Perth, Australia on 9 March. Sasha also presented the modeling techniques to support "Gas plume and LNG modeling" planning.

• Eoin Howlett attended a two-day technical workshop of oceanographic data managers and database administrators hosted by SECOORA and SEACOOS at UNC Chapel Hill, March 9-10. Eoin gave a presentation that discussed the challenges faced with integrating disparate observing and model forecast data for end-user applications such as search and rescue and oil spill modeling.

• Nicole Whittier provided an online refresher OILMAP training to NJ Resources, LLC to assist personnel in preparation for an upcoming oil spill drill.

• Tim Giguere and Kelly Knee attended the 2006 ESRI Developers Summit 17-18 March in Palm Springs, CA. Technical sessions covered a variety of topics including data interoperability, custom deployment, web services, and enterprise applications.

• Malcolm Spaulding, Craig Swanson, Kathy Jayko and Nicole Whittier have recently had a paper accepted in the upcoming Journal of Hazardous Materials special issue on LNG. The paper, "An LNG release, transport, and fate model system for marine spills" describes ASA's adaptation of its spill modeling technology to LNG accidental or intentional spills with a new model called LNGMAP.

• On April 27 Eduardo Yassuda was an invited speaker at the Imagem/ESRI MiniPUG (Petroleum Users Group meeting) - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil), and presented the paper "Oilmap for ArcGIS Desktop - risk assessment and oil spill modeling in offshore areas and terrestrial pipelines".

• The Transportation Security Administration and US Coast Guard conducted a port security exercise on 6 April in Staten Island, NY, to test maritime security plans in place for the Port of New York-New Jersey. Eric Anderson, Chris Galagan, Tim Giguere and Chris Mueller of ASA, and Don Jensen of Jensen & Associates, provided technology support and served as exercise facilitators. The exercise scenario centered on the presence of an explosive device inside a cargo container at a terminal inside the Port.

Eoin Howlett and Eric Comerma attended the Interspill 2006 conference, a component of the Oceanology International Conference, in London 21-23 March. Eoin and Eric shared a stand with Nowcasting International and demonstrated OILMAP's and SARMAP's capability to access forecasting data from Nowcasting's on-line service.

• Craig Swanson represented ASA in a meeting of New England water quality managers called by the Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System on 25 April. The purpose of the meeting was to explore agency coastal assessment needs for data and information that can be supplied by GOMOOS. ASA's role is to assist in the development of rapid prototype information system components useful to the agencies.

• During the first week of May, Deborah French McCay and Eduardo Yassuda led a workshop in Rio de Janeiro with PETROBRAS oceanographers and environmental engineers concerned with oil spill impact assessment and permitting. The focus of the workshop was on oil weathering and fate, development of appropriate criteria (thresholds of concern) for assessing potential impacts to the marine environment, and implications of the application of dispersants. The workshop included hands-on training with ASA's oil fates and effects model SIMAP, which PETROBRAS is using to evaluate potential impacts.

New Faces

James Barnes has joined ASA as a software programmer. James received his BA in geography in 1990 from the University of Connecticut. His previous experience includes creating Emergency Management software that incorporates GIS tools. At ASA James will be applying his software and GIS skills in support of various projects.

• Jill Rowe will be presenting at the NRDA session of the upcoming 22nd Annual International Conference on Soils, Sediment, and Water in Amherst, MA 16-19 October. The theme of the conference is Expediting and Economizing Cleanups, and her talk is titled "Estimation of Natural Resource Damages for 23 Florida Cases Using Modeling of Physical Fates and Biological Injuries".

• Craig Swanson will be presenting three papers at the upcoming Oceans 06 conference in Boston 18-21 September. The titles of these papers are "Analysis of Intake and Discharge Salinity Regimes for a Desalination Plant", "Transport and Fate of Sediment Suspended from Jetting Operations for Undersea Cable Burial", and "A New Approach to Simulation of LNG Spills in the Ocean".

• Eric Comerma will be attending the 2nd International Workshop on Technologies for Search And Rescue and other Emergency Marine Operations in Brest, France, 18-20 October.

• Craig will also be presenting a paper titled "Modeling dredge-induced suspended sediment transport and deposition in the Taunton River and Mt. Hope Bay", Massachusetts at the upcoming Western Dredging Association (WEDA) conference in San Diego from 25-28 June. The paper focuses on dredging issues from a proposed LNG terminal in Massachusetts. Tatsu Isaji is a joint author.