A model of residual currents and pollutant transport in the Arabian Gulf

A pollutant transport model is presented for the Arabian Gulf, with particular relevance to the portion of the Gulp adjacent to coast of Saudi Arabia. The model has been developed specifically for oil spill simulations, but it can be adapted to other pollutants. The residual currents in this part of the Gulf are dominated by wind-forcing, and part of the model consists of a computation of the mean wind-driven currents for each month. This is achieved by first solving the shallow-water equations (using a finite difference algorithm) for the depth-averaged velocities, and then solving the momentum equations for the vertical velocity profiles. The pollutant transport part of the model includes surface spreading of the slick, evaporation and dispersion into the water column, convection, and both horizontal and vertical dispersion of the pollutant plume. The model is applied to the simulation of a 5000-barrel surface spill in the Marjan offshore oil field.