The Merits of Online Digital Tools in Proactive Spill Monitoring and Management - a Case Study from a Pipeline Trenching and Backfilling Project in Baltic Sea
Type:
Presented during:
WODCON XXIII - Dredging is changing - The Practice. The Science. The Business.
Authors:
S. Saremi, J. Jensen, S. Kristensen, C. Holm, B. Elsässer, U. Lumborg, I. Gudjonsson, M. Berthelsen
Abstract
"Turbid water from spillage of sediment during dredging works constitutes a risk to the marine environment. Potential impacts from turbidity are identified in the project's EIA. At operational stage, eco-compliance, while maintaining the production rates, can be assured using adaptive spill monitoring and management planning to inform the operation (Foster et al., 2010). The scope of such system can vary and typically scale with the complexity of the operation and severity of impacts identified at the EIA. By help of numerical models and their forecasting capabilities, adaptive monitoring and management systems can be used proactively e.g., to enable mitigating actions. Setting up such systems, where monitoring and modelling go hand in hand in real time, have previously been challenged by cumbersome and expensive setup and execution. In recent years however, the advances in computational, telecommunication, and cloud technologies, have considerably eliminated these challenges and made it more feasible to setup adaptive and operational monitoring and management systems with less expenses and easier access by integrating the telemetry equipped monitoring stations and cloud-based modelling and data management. Hereby, the implementation and execution of a full scale operational proactive spill monitoring and management system for a pipeline trenching and backfilling project in Baltic Sea is presented. The monitoring system was composed of mobile buoys with online turbidity sensors following the dredgers along the pipeline route, 3D plume dispersion models running on cloud-based servers in both hindcast and forecast mode, and an online platform, 'PlumeCast', which was considered the heart of the system by providing operational access to the combined model and measured data, forecast and mitigation scenarios, compliance analysis, and real-time overview of the positions of the dredgers and monitoring stations. The project customized interface and the web access substantially increased the communications, transparency and responsiveness between different project stakeholders and the agility in decision making, while reducing the uncertainties."
Keywords: adaptive spill monitoring and management, cloud-based services, plume dispersion modelling, pipeline trenching, turbidity