Environmental Risk Assessment for Maritime Transport and Offshore Structures through State-of-the-Art Ocean Models and Observations

A special issue of Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (ISSN 2077-1312). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Oceanography".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 November 2022) | Viewed by 10705

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
Interests: water cycle and salinity changes; air–sea interaction; oceanic freshwater budget; impacts of ocean physics on marine ecosystems; Mediterranean Sea climate variability and change
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
Interests: ocean and climate modeling; climate change; climate variability and predictability; Earth system modeling; iceberg forecasting

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to highlight recent advances in the practical ocean model and the observational data interrogation procedure to include realistic waves and currents, along with winds and ice conditions, in subsequent structural analysis of offshore structures and ships. The main purpose is to refine assessments of structural integrity and environmental risk, a matter of specific interest to ship and offshore structure classification societies. In developing the throughput and use of ocean state and wave forecasting data, these assessments may also be of use in real-time offshore operations. This Special Issue brings together physical oceanography and the mathematics of fluid–structure interaction, and particularly addresses the likely extreme environmental loads on a selection of structures and ships, in a wide range of offshore environments. 

Dr. Nikolaos Skliris
Prof. Dr. Robert Marsh
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • offshore structures
  • ship operational conditions
  • ocean current and wave loads
  • sea ice loads
  • iceberg hazards
  • ocean forecasting
  • environmental risk assessment.

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 8011 KiB  
Article
Environmental Contours in the Adriatic Sea for Design and Analysis of Marine Structures
by Antonio Mikulić and Joško Parunov
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2023, 11(5), 899; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/jmse11050899 - 23 Apr 2023
Viewed by 1189
Abstract
The environmental contours represent an approach for defining extreme environmental conditions, resulting in extreme responses of marine structures with a given return period. Over the past decade, an increasing number of studies have been developed dealing with the methods for defining environmental contours [...] Read more.
The environmental contours represent an approach for defining extreme environmental conditions, resulting in extreme responses of marine structures with a given return period. Over the past decade, an increasing number of studies have been developed dealing with the methods for defining environmental contours and enhancing their practical application in different marine environments. In the present study, environmental contours describing significant wave heights and peak wave periods are created for the Adriatic Sea. This small semi-enclosed sea basin within the Mediterranean Sea encounters increasing maritime and offshore activities. Considering also a great but still unused potential for the installation of renewable energy facilities, the main motives for the presented study are concluded. The environmental contours are established based on 24 years of hindcast wave data extracted from the WorldWaves database. Joint distributions consisting of the marginal distribution of significant wave height and conditional distributions of peak wave periods are used as a basis for the creation of environmental contours using the IFORM and ISORM methods. Return periods of 1 year, 25 years, and 100 years are considered relevant for the marine operation, design of ships, and offshore structures, respectively. A possibility of environmental contour practical application to the calculation of global wave loads upon ship structures is presented. Based on the uncertainty assessment performed, conservative environmental contours for the whole Adriatic are also presented. Full article
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13 pages, 3387 KiB  
Article
Research on Uncertainty Evolution of Ship Collision Status Based on Navigation Environment
by Liwen Huang, Yingfan Chen, Lei Wu, Cheng Xie and Shuzhe Chen
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2022, 10(11), 1741; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/jmse10111741 - 13 Nov 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1191
Abstract
There is a need to study the evolutionary laws of the risks in the navigation environments of complex marine areas. This can promote shipping safety using an early-warning system. The present study determines shipping flows and meteorological conditions in a marine area on [...] Read more.
There is a need to study the evolutionary laws of the risks in the navigation environments of complex marine areas. This can promote shipping safety using an early-warning system. The present study determines shipping flows and meteorological conditions in a marine area on the basis of meteorological and automatic identification system (AIS) data. It also determines the uncertainty evolution law of the navigation environment’s influencing factors. Moreover, a navigation risk evolution system for ships in complex marine areas was developed. A case study was carried out in a coastal area of China on the basis of the determined evolutionary laws. Evolution in the navigational environment risk within the case study area was analyzed. The results showed that the hydrometeorology wind factor has the greatest impact on the risk of ship collisions. This work was not only able to show advances in navigational collision environmental evolution laws but also provides a theoretical reference for the evaluation and early warning of risks in shipping environments. Full article
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15 pages, 6534 KiB  
Article
Risk Evaluation of Navigation Environment Based on Dynamic Weight Model and Its Application
by Shuzhe Chen, Lei Wu, Cheng Xie, Li Zhou, Rui Wang, Zhao Liu, Quanlong Zhu and Lianzhong Zhu
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2022, 10(6), 770; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/jmse10060770 - 2 Jun 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1756
Abstract
In order to scientifically and reasonably evaluate the safety risk of ship navigation, to and better solve the problems of the poor sensitivity of static evaluation and insufficient ability to grasp the overall dynamic situation, in this paper, representative safety evaluation indexes for [...] Read more.
In order to scientifically and reasonably evaluate the safety risk of ship navigation, to and better solve the problems of the poor sensitivity of static evaluation and insufficient ability to grasp the overall dynamic situation, in this paper, representative safety evaluation indexes for ship navigation are screened and the initial weight of each index is confirmed in combination with the improved analytic hierarchy process (IAHP), in order to learn the changes of navigation environment and accident samples in the waters in the jurisdiction. Finally, the dynamic risk evaluation is carried out by constructing a dynamic weight evaluation model for the safety risk of the navigation environment based on the weight fusion of subjective and objective impact factors. The waters under the jurisdiction of Sanya, China were selected for the study, and the navigation risk of the waters in the jurisdiction was calculated by using the dynamic weight evaluation model based on navigation risk. The calculation results are highly consistent with the results based on the statistics of historical accidents and the analysis of the characteristics of the navigation environment in the jurisdiction. The navigation risk in this water area is the greatest from May to September every year. The dynamic weight evaluation model can not only overcome the subjective evaluation distortion in the traditional risk evaluation theory of navigation environment in practical applications, but can also provide a scientific theoretical basis for the dynamic evaluation and early warning of the risk of ship navigation environments through continuous sample learning. Full article
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22 pages, 7557 KiB  
Article
An Evaluation of the Performance of Sea Ice Thickness Forecasts to Support Arctic Marine Transport
by Tarkan Aslan Bilge, Nicolas Fournier, Davi Mignac, Laura Hume-Wright, Laurent Bertino, Timothy Williams and Steffen Tietsche
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2022, 10(2), 265; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/jmse10020265 - 15 Feb 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3012
Abstract
In response to declining sea ice cover, human activity in the Arctic is increasing, with access to the Arctic Ocean becoming more important for socio-economic reasons. Accurate knowledge of sea ice conditions is therefore becoming increasingly important for reducing the risk and operational [...] Read more.
In response to declining sea ice cover, human activity in the Arctic is increasing, with access to the Arctic Ocean becoming more important for socio-economic reasons. Accurate knowledge of sea ice conditions is therefore becoming increasingly important for reducing the risk and operational cost of human activities in the Arctic. Satellite-based sea ice charting is routinely used for tactical ice management, but the marine sector does not yet make optimal use of sea ice thickness (SIT) or sea ice concentration (SIC) forecasts on weekly timescales. This is because forecasts have not achieved sufficient accuracy, verification and resolution to be used in situations where maritime safety is paramount, and assessing the suitability of forecasts can be difficult because they are often not available in the appropriate format. In this paper, existing SIT forecasts currently available on the Copernicus Marine Service (CMS) or elsewhere in the public domain are evaluated for the first time. These include the seven-day forecasts from the UK Met Office, MET Norway, the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC) and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Their forecast skills were assessed against unique in situ data from five moorings deployed between 2016 and 2019 by the Barents Sea Metocean and Ice Network (BASMIN) and Barents Sea Exploration Collaboration (BaSEC) Joint Industry Projects. Assessing these models highlights the importance of data assimilation in short-term forecasting of SIT and suggests that improved assimilation of sea ice data could increase the utility of forecasts for navigational purposes. This study also demonstrates that forecasts can achieve similar or improved correlation with observations when compared to a persistence model at a lead time of seven days, providing evidence that, when used in conjunction with sea ice charts, SIT forecasts could provide valuable information on future sea ice conditions. Full article
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26 pages, 11129 KiB  
Article
Assessing Extreme Environmental Loads on Offshore Structures in the North Sea from High-Resolution Ocean Currents, Waves and Wind Forecasting
by Nikolaos Skliris, Robert Marsh, Meric Srokosz, Yevgeny Aksenov, Stefanie Rynders and Nicolas Fournier
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9(10), 1052; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/jmse9101052 - 24 Sep 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2216
Abstract
The fast development of the offshore energy industry becomes an essential component of resilient economies in most of the countries around the North Sea, addressing an increasing demand for cost-efficient and environmentally safe energy sources. Offshore wind farms are planned to be installed [...] Read more.
The fast development of the offshore energy industry becomes an essential component of resilient economies in most of the countries around the North Sea, addressing an increasing demand for cost-efficient and environmentally safe energy sources. Offshore wind farms are planned to be installed further away from the coasts to ensure stronger and more stable wind resources in this region. Oil and gas extraction infrastructures are also planned to move into deeper areas of the continental shelf and continental shelf slopes to explore new fields. These deeper areas of the ocean are characterised by harsh environmental conditions: stronger winds, larger waves and strong shelf slope currents, inducing considerably larger loads on offshore structures. This study brings together operational physical oceanography and the mathematics of fluid-structure interactions to estimate the likelihood of extreme environmental loads on offshore structures in the North Sea. We use the state-of-the-art Met Office high resolution ocean forecasting system, which provides high-frequency data on ocean and tidal currents, wave heights and periods and winds at a ~7 km horizontal resolution grid, spanning the North–West European Shelf. The Morison equation framework is used to calculate environmental loads on various types of offshore structures that are typically employed by the offshore industries in the North Sea. We use hourly data for a 2-year period to analyse the spatio-temporal variability of mean and extreme hydrodynamic loads and derive the relative contributions of currents, waves and winds in the region. The results indicate that waves dominate extreme hydrodynamic forces on the shallow shelf, whereas the current contribution is important at the shelf break and in the English Channel. Full article
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