Evaluation of Bird Impacts in Historical Oil Spill Cases Using the SIMAP Oil Spill Model

• Main Authors: Deborah French Mccay, Jill J. Rowe
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2004
• Subjects: North Cape
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.524.9551; http://www.asascience.com/about/publications/pdf/McCay/FrenchMcCay_AMOP04.pdf

The oil spill model algorithms in SIMAP have been developed over the past two decades to simulate fate and effects of spills in geographic areas spanning the globe and under a variety of environmental conditions. Important components of model development are testing and verification of model algorithms and results. An evaluation of 14 spill case studies was undertaken to compare model predictions of biological impacts to those based on field observations after the spill. Observational data on biological impacts of spills are primarily of birds and other wildlife oiled, although in one case examined, quantitative data on impacts to fish and invertebrates are also available (North Cape oil spill). Unfortunately, in no case study was error analysis performed on the field-based estimates of impact. Also, unlike verification studies for physical models where the environmental data simulated can be measured with some accuracy, biological abundances and impacts are extremely variable in time and space and, therefore, very difficult to measure and quantify uncertainty. Thus, quantitative error analysis could not be performed on the model results, but