Wave-induced mixing within a gravity-driven surface current

An increasing awareness of environmental issues, coupled with a number of recent events, has focused considerable attention on the likely consequences of a large oil spill. If the impact of these accidental releases is to be minimises, the risk assessment and contingency planning must be based upon a sound understanding of the dispersion process. This is required to determine both the lateral spreading of the oil slick and the vertical mixing within the water column. Although a number of oil slick propagation models are available there are no existing solutions that adequately take into account the additional mixing associated with the wave climate. Indeed, it is widely believed that this uncertainty was responsible for the inability of the models applied to the Braer spillage (1993) to predict the extent of the oil contamination.