Modeling Oil Pollution Dissemination in Different Areas of Arvandroud River, Iran

Oil silt dissemination occurs in aquatic environments owing to chemical, physical, and biological processes that depend on the oil, hydrodynamic, meteorological, and environmental properties. Oil silts are disseminated because of currents, waves, and wind effects. The extant study was conducted on Arvandroud due to the existence of Abadan Oil Refinery, and ports of Abadan, Khorramshahr, and Basrah. To do so, MIKE 21 model was employed. This numerical model was developed based on the Eulerian method, in which the continuity and momentum equations (in-depth averaged Navier–Stokes equations) were employed. After the calibration step, the model results were compared with the field measurements, and findings indicated an accurate model prediction of water surface fluctuations, current speed and direction. Hydrodynamic module output was applied to the oil spill's analysis module to simulate the oil dissemination pattern. The oil spill's analysis module employed Lagrangian particles to anticipate the concentration and thickness of oil silt. In the next step, three spatial scenarios were designed and implemented to find the effect of the aforementioned environmental factors on oil pollution dissemination. According to the results of modeling, if pollution occurs at the beginning of tides for three hours in front of Abadan Oil Refinery and Khosrowabad, while the average debit (discharge) of river equals 480m3/s, pollution reaches the Persian Gulf after 124 and 85.5 hours, respectively.