The poster presents the project objectives, its activities and expected outcomes. Each partner has a printed version that is displayed during events and meetings to promote the project.
The leaflet describes the project in a nutshell in an accessible way, providing information about its structure, partnership and expected results. It will be distributed in a printed version during events and meetings.
The deliverable D2.1: Literature survey on past accidents is officially out. It compiles past accidents that have induced the formation of a toxic, flammable or explosive gas cloud. The main purpose is to better identify the categories of chemicals the most involved; the main risks generated by the gas cloud dispersion in the air and the consequences of a HNS slick on fire at the water surface as well as the hazard due to a vapour cloud explosion.
The mechanisms driving the evaporation and dissolution of a chemical from a slick on water surface were investigated through experimental tests at various scales. This report presents the following results:
A review of existing literature for incidents involving gaseous or volatile HNS, their impacts and available actions to protect the safety and health of local populations has been undertaken to better understand the evidence around these types of incidents and inform proposed guidance and decision-making procedures for planners and responders.
Results indicate that while incidents involving gas and volatile HNS are thankfully not prolific, representing less than 1% to 3% of all maritime incidents, and between 10 to 15% for fires, they do occur, with many occurring in ports or near the shore.
Evidence from published scientific studies identify a number of hazardous gases and volatile HNS commonly associated with such incidents most notably; Ammonia, Chlorine, Hydrogen Sulphide, Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), Acrylonitrile, and numerous volatile hydrocarbons, while dense gas clouds are most commonly associated with releases. Reactive HNS such as fumigants in shipping containers may also present potential risks to crew and the general public.
The aim of the guidance is to aid decision making in the immediate aftermath of an incident determining protection measures, prior to receipt of detailed monitoring and modelling data. The guidance is aimed at those involved in managing the initial response as well as those with emergency planning roles.
What this guidance is not is a definitive assessment of site and hazard specific risks posed by a particular incident. This will need to be established as information from the scene, local conditions, and ongoing assessment data are collected. Furthermore, this guidance is targeted at protection of public health and not aimed at the protection of response personnel located within the immediate source of the incident. The Operational Field Guide can be accessed in the Tools section.
While experimental data are essential for improving risk prediction models, large-scale sea trials remain indispensable for implementing or validating response protocols. For example, when an Incident Management Team is deployed to a chemical tanker in difficulty, are current resources capable of detecting a product leak?
To address this, Cedre and the French Navy's CEPPOL organised a sea trial involving emerging on-board and airborne sensors. The trial also included the participation of the Belgian Civil Protection, the Belgian coastguard and the French customs. Drift models were compared by monitoring the movement of a vegetable oil slick using drifting buoys and aerial observations. Additionally, infra-red images of chemical spills were processed to validate the evaporation model developed in the MANIFESTS project.
The report is divided into three main parts. The first chapter provides an overview of the IPOMAC sea trial, highlighting the main results obtained. It emphasizes the importance of this field trial in adequately preparing for the subsequent MANIFESTS sea trial. The second chapter delves into the MANIFESTS sea trial, which engaged various European partners. It begins by presenting a comprehensive catalogue of sensors, showcasing the performance achieved in the field with innovative sensor technologies.
In November 2019, Galicia faced the incident involving the tanker "Blue Star" during its transit from the Ares anchorage to the REPSOL terminal in A Coruña. The vessel was carrying 6000 tons of chemical products when it experienced a mechanical breakdown and subsequent fire, resulting in a loss of power and leaving it adrift.
This incident served as a foundational scenario to assess the response capabilities and identify necessary improvements for the agencies responsible for emergency operations. The objective was to equip them with the most effective tools for supporting management and coordination across various operational domains. To that end, on December 14, 2021, a desktop exercise was conducted, engaging all relevant stakeholders in the response effort.
The exercise aimed to determine the optimal response strategies for incident response groups dealing with substances that could potentially generate toxic clouds. It also sought to identify improvement measures that could enhance decision-making support tools for personnel involved in relevant contingency plans.
The primary objective of the exercise was to train response groups, both at the decision-making and operational levels, to effectively handle incidents during unloading operations.
It specifically focused on a scenario involving a leak during the unloading process of Maya crude oil at Repsol Petróleo S.A. This leak was caused by a sudden pressure increase due to human error. This resulted in a spill of 2 m3 of crude oil into the sea, covering an area of 1,200 m2, initially situated between the ship and the jetty. The spill led to the formation of a toxic cloud of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) due to the high gas content in Maya crude oil.
Within the framework of the MANIFESTS project, the specific goal was to test the COPtool developed in the project. This tool aimed to provide crisis managers with real-time and accessible information crucial for decision-making. The responsive capability of the tool was assessed by testing its functionality across various devices such as PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones
The MANIFESTS Exercise Tool aims at providing support and training in the formulation of marine pollution exercises, facilitating access to manuals, guides and exercises carried out by other organizations, and providing resources to users that facilitate the design, preparation and development of their own exercises. The tool will consist of a public on line portal giving access to several functionalities, including an online database of exercises, a training section with basic principles and key information, an agenda for developing an exercise programme, and a formulation tool that will guide users in the preparation and evaluation of their exercises
This report presents the results collected in the framework of task 4.1 with the aim at developing tools that would help responders to assess risks in case of an explosion and/or a fire of volatile HNS.
The fire module computes the energy flux as a function of distance to the fire source. It enables to assess the safety distance at which e.g. a boat can approach a fire while keeping the crew safe. The burning rate can also be estimated.
The explosion module computes the overpressure of the shockwave caused by the combustion of a chemical. This overpressure can be very dangerous for people and infrastructure, causing wounds from minor injury to death and destruction of building. The model could be used to predict what could happen in case of the explosion of a stored explosive for instance.
The two models are simplifications of the reality. Their outputs can be useful to provide a rough idea of what could happen in open sea but should always be interpreted keeping the model hypotheses and limitations in mind.
A new atmospheric dispersion module fully coupled to OSERIT has been developed and several marine processes have been improved. In this report, the improved processes are described and their actual implementation in OSERIT (Oil Spill Evaluation and Response Integrated Tool) is explained.
A small number of models can simulate the behaviour of gaseous and volatile pollutant released at sea. Among these are four models developed and/or operated by MANIFESTS partners:
Although all four models fall under the category of Lagrangian particle-based models, they differ in various implementation choices. The objective was thus to conduct a comprehensive model inter-comparison exercise. This exercise aimed to explore the strengths and weaknesses of Lagrangian particle models in general, as well as understand and document the impacts of different implementation choices in each model.
The ultimate goal was to provide insights to maritime authorities for correctly interpreting model results in simulations involving gaseous or volatile hazardous and noxious substances (HNS). It's important to note that this inter-comparison exercise did not aim to identify the best model among the four models compared.
Models are crucial tools for understanding and predicting the behaviour of hazardous and noxious substances (HNS) in the event of a spill. However, it is important to recognise their limitations and potential inaccuracies. In this context, four models, namely CHEMMAP, OpenDrift, OSERIT, and MOHID, were utilised and compared against distinct datasets.
This report comprises three validation sections. The first section examines a small-scale laboratory experiment, which visualises the interplay between evaporation, dissolution, and volatilisation, while assessing the models' ability to simulate these processes. The second section focuses on investigating the impact of wind on the evaporation rate by using a wind tunnel and providing comprehensive environmental data to the model. The final two sections of the report compare the models' simulations with the sea trial conducted in late May 2022. These sections assess both the water drift and air dispersion against field data.
Building on the experience gained and development carried out during the previous HNS-MS and MARINER projects, the MANIFESTS decision support system (DSS) integrates several services, including the DSS Common Operational Picture (COPtool).
This document aims to outline the structure of contingency planning, focusing on the information involved and its intended users.
The first part of the document describes the various sources of information typically encountered during a marine pollution incident, considering their temporal and spatial characteristics. It also explains the data layers and reports generated throughout the response efforts, as well as the roles and functionalities of the different stakeholders involved. The second part outlines the technological solution for integrating and distributing information among the various actors in the contingency. It further provides detailed specifications for each type of information layer to be distributed.
This report provides the installation guides for three key components: the COPtool, the COP viewer, and the Web application for the model interface.
This report provides the user guides for the COPtool, the HNS database and the web application for HNS models.
This report showcases the proof of concept of the MANIFESTS Decision Support System (DSS) and provides instructions on how to become a registered user of this service. The DSS encompasses five types of modelling:
The Communication Plan describes the procedures, methods and tools to enable effective and consistent communication and capitalisation of the project outcomes to all local, regional, national and international stakeholders. It offers an overview of the communication activities planned in the frameworks of MANIFESTS and describes the tools, the target audience, and the visual identity.
This report showcases the proof of concept of the MANIFESTS Serious game which can be accessed in the Tools section.
This deliverable is an interactive report that serves as a concise recap of all the project outputs, presented in a clear and accessible manner. It also provides direct links to the tools that were developed, including predictive models for slick drifting and fire/explosion risks in the event of chemical spills. Furthermore, the report includes a reminder of previous EU projects that have addressed the HNS topic. Direct links to their respective websites were incorporated, allowing access to additional relevant information.
The Knowledge Tool is an online repository that provides a comprehensive collection of marine research and technical resources dedicated to preparedness and response for HNS spills. Users can easily search for relevant knowledge and resources, organized by major HNS themes, resource types, organisations, and projects. The tool offers both simple and advanced search options, granting direct access to resources or redirecting to the author's website when applicable.
Initially, the resources were classified into 12 knowledge areas, including case studies, contingency planning, environmental monitoring, impact and recovery, exercising, harbour and industrial facilities, HNS characterization, human health, liability and compensation, modeling, response protocols and equipment, risk analysis, and training. As part of the MANIFESTS project's efforts to update and enhance the Knowledge Tool, the "Training and Exercising" area was split into two separate areas. The resources compiled during task 3.4 of the project, focusing on the methodology for compiling, reviewing, and classifying exercising resources, are presented in this report and now stored within the "Exercising" knowledge area.