Information Engineering for Ports and Marine Environments

Lin Mu, Lizhe Wang, Mingwei Wang

• Publisher: Chapman and Hall/CRC
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000051728
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Informatique
• Subtopic: Sciences générales de l'informatique

Information Engineering for Port and Marine Environments provides the technology of tidal level prediction, the technology of oil spill early-warning, and the research for the theory of storm sedimentation, the construction for monitor ability, the early-warning service for numerical simulation and operational, which involves many aspects such as theoretical research, system establishment, and application of information technology, et al. Because of the certain prospective and advancement of multiple work, it will play a positive role in promoting the related technology of the field.

There are several of important offshore ports in China, such as Tianjin port, Yangshan Port, Ningbo-Zhoushan port, Huanghua port et al., most of them are located in the coast of muddy and muddy silty, and the depth of water is shallow, the sediment deposition is serious, the large ship is operated by tide. In order to sufficiently keep the rapid and stable economic growth in bay, estuary and delta, guarantee the security of port, channel, maritime, oceanic engineering and resource development of oil and gas, and better escort for the social economy activities, it is essential to provide the information service of sediment and ocean hydrometeorology with width coverage, and forecasting and warning information.

It is all the latest research results in the book, which involves many fields such as physical oceanography, meteorology, biology, chemistry, geology, environment, transportation and law and so on. The development of information assurance and prediction system for port shipping and ocean environment is a huge and arduous project. It is too hasty to finish the book, due to the limited knowledge of the author, the careless is unavoidable, cordially invites the readers to point out.

Features:

• An entire system to forecast the port shipping and ocean environment information is proposed, including what is the port shipping and ocean environment information.

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• The concept of port shipping and ocean environment data integration is presented, and the essential modules are built for the ocean dynamics model.

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• The high performance port shipping and ocean environment data processing system is constructed, and the model dataset and geographic information is obtained to build the basic database.
• The application of information assurance technology for port shipping and ocean environment is conducted at Tianjin port and Yangshan Port.

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This book is meant for senior undergraduates and postgraduate students in the fields of geoinformatics, Port engineering and Marine engineering. Engineers and technicians in the related fields can also use it for reference.

Chapter 1

Key Issues in Marine Environment Information Support Technology

1.1Research on the operational forecasting technology for tide-bound water levels

1.2Research on emergency response technology for marine oil spills

1.3Technical research on sediment transport in estuary and coastal areas

1.1  Research on the operational forecasting technology for tide-bound water levels

Since China’s reform and opening up, China’s import and export trade has increased rapidly. Especially since the 21st century, the pressure on ships entering and leaving ports has become more and more salient. In addition, ports and waterway areas are also affected by abnormal weather events caused by global climate change [1, 2]. For instance, the positive and negative water elevation caused by weather, open sea signals and other factors has posed a daunting challenge to the safety of navigation through ports and waterways. Tide-bound water level refers to a high-tide water level enabling the navigation of ships at certain time intervals [3]. Tide-bound water-level value is often required for the design of seaports and the selection of waterways. Although the tide-bound water level value appears around the time when high-tide water happens, in most cases, due to many uncertain factors, such as weather, it still requires experience and complicated calculations to get the accurate water-level value, otherwise navigable water level may be designed to be too low, hindering the navigation, or an area of water may be dredged too deep, causing serious waste. Moreover, inaccurate knowledge of tide-bound water levels will affect the scheduling of ships and cause many risks under abnormal conditions. Therefore, an accurate value of tide-bound water level is important in many areas, such as shipping and port engineering, especially in the ports and waterways that have low water depth and large tidal range. However, as abnormal weather events increase, the accuracy and timeliness of conventional tide-bound water-level estimation methods can no longer meet the current demand for tide-bound water-level forecasting [4]. The main reason is that the physical basis of the empirical method is weak, and it is difficult to accurately understand the impact of changes in the weather and marine environment in a large area on the local tide-bound water level. Furthermore, the previous dynamic numerical model is subject to the data and calculation accuracy regarding water depth and topography. So, the model cannot replace the empirical formula to forecast the accuracy of tide level to some extent [5].

Therefore, the United States conducted research on real-time water level forecasting in the 1990s. China also carried out such research in the late 1990s. The basic method is to conduct numerical simulation by using wind fields (including forecasting wind fields), calculate the value of positive and negative water elevation, and generate forecast water-level data in combination with the corresponding astronomical tide level [6]. As the accuracy of wind field data is rather limited, the calculated value of positive and negative water elevation can be greatly different. By the time project implementation begins, the development of real-time water-level forecasting has not yet started. However, the project has improved the accuracy of positive and negative water-elevation forecasting in the 24 hours by using China’s coastal hydrometeorological measurement data that has the longest time span and highest accuracy and using highly refined coastal topography data in combination with the empirical statistical approaches and dynamic model calculation methods. In combination with tide-level forecasting through astronomical tide, the project has also improved the real-time forecasting capacity of the actual water level, providing an effective water-depth reference for vessels entering and leaving ports. During the storm surge, the value of positive and negative storm surge and changes in tide level can be estimated at any time, which can not only provide technical support for maintaining the operating efficiency of China’s offshore ports, but can also improve the safety and facilitate the development of China’s shipping industry [7]. The social and economic benefits thereof are clear.

1.2  Research on emergency response technology for marine oil spills

In recent years, China has accelerated the building of emergency response systems for marine oil spills, but there are still many problems.

There is a lack of marine oil-spill emergency response management systems [8]. At present, China’s maritime emergency management involves multiple departments including marine sectors, fishery sectors, environmental protection sectors, transport and maritime sectors, and customs and border defense sectors. In addition, coastal provinces, cities and departments only manage their adjacent waters by themselves, and it is difficult to form an integrated management pattern among different departments, provinces and cities. If things continue this way, the comprehensiveness and uniformity of China’s marine management functions will be weakened, and it will be difficult to form an efficient and scientific management system for oil spill emergency response.

There is a lack of emergency response equipment and materials for marine oil spill accidents. According to reports, after the “7.16” accident in Dalian (two pipelines exploded on July 16, 2010 at Dalian Xingang Port), Liaoning’s Maritime Department promptly laid a 7,000-meter-long oil boom in the contaminated waters and organized nearly 20 ships for cleaning the waters. Then the department arranged to get oil booms (more than 2,000 meters long), oil absorption felts and other decontamination materials from Hebei, Shandong, Tianjin and other areas. However, they were still insufficient to respond to the emergency. It is understood that starting on July 18, Dalian mobilized 800 fishing boats to participate in oil collection. On the 20th, the number of fishing boats reached more than 1,200. Being one of the three largest oil-spill emergency equipment warehouses in China, Dalian Port is designed to be able to deal with oil spills by 1,000-ton ships. Generally, this port can control and clear oil spills caused by ships in near-shore waters. However, according to the feedback on the “7.16” accident, the port’s emergency response capability obviously fell short because it failed to promptly deal with the oil spill [9, 10]. Some experts pointed out that due to technical constraints, China’s ability to efficiently recover and remove spilled oil in a large area after a marine oil spill accident happens has been weak. For example, up to now, China still has no world-class emergency oil-recovery vessel, let alone the number of oil-recovery devices that match the vessels. So, the lack of emergency response equipment and materials for marine oil-spill accidents seriously hinders the building of emergency response systems.

There is a lack of emergency response teams made up of professionals. The emergency team is responsible for dealing with the oil-spill accident, including a certain scale and quantity of pollutant clean-up equipment and instruments and well-trained operators. However, there is a lack of training for emergency team members in China. Due to the complexity of emergency treatment of oil spills, the support from a variety of disciplines, such as environment science, information science and medicine, is quite necessary. In addition, experts in relevant fields are needed to provide guidance and technical consulting services at crucial times during emergency response. Furthermore, necessary training for the relevant emergency team members is required.

1.3  Technical research on sediment transport in estuary and coastal areas

In estuary and coastal areas, the main causes of sediment movement are tidal currents and waves; “sediment-stirring by waves and sediment transport by tidal current” is the sediment-movement mechanism in the areas [11]. The interaction between waves and tidal currents in the near-shore area is more salient and complicated than in other areas [12]. Tidal current fields affect wave fields in two areas: 1) wave changes caused by current velocity and direction; and 2) the effect of tide level fluctuation on waves. The hydrodynamics of deep sea areas is dominated by the effect of currents: when tidal currents are in the opposite direction of waves, wave height increases; when tidal currents are in the same direction of waves, wave height decreases. In the shallow sea area, tide-level changes are relatively obvious; accordingly, the wave changes caused by tide-level changes are also obvious. As tide level rises and falls, wave height and tidal cycles change synchronously. The effect of waves on tidal currents is mainly reflected in radiation stress acting on circulation in shallow waters. At the same time, the bottom shear stress caused by waves also increases the bottom friction of tidal currents. Therefore, before the simulation of sediment movement, it is necessary to simulate the complex hydrodynamic processes in the near-shore areas, including the coupling of wind, waves and currents, and their interaction with near-shore buildings [13, 14].

Chapter 2

Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics and Marine Dynamics Modelling

2.1Research content

2.2Atmosphere module

2.2.1Introduction to the model

2.2.2Model configuration

2.2.3System framework

2.2.4WRF initial field-generation scheme considering typhoon process

2.2.5Model application examples and result verification

2.3Marine wave module

2.3.1Introduction to the model

2.3.2Model application examples and result verification

2.4Marine current module

2.4.1Introduction to the model

2.4.2Model configuration

2.4.3Model application and result verification

2.1 Research content

To establish a high-resolution, long-time marine dynamics model, it is necessary to consider sm...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Authors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgment
• 1. Key Issues in Marine Environment Information Support Technology
• 2. Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics and Marine Dynamics Modelling
• 3. Forecasting Technology of Tide-bound Water Levels
• 4. Key Technology of Oil Spill Early-warning and Forecasting
• 5. Forecasting Technology of Sediment Transport
• 6. Research of Integrated Marine Environment Information Support and Forecast System
• 7. Case Application at Tianjin Port
• 8. Case Application at Yangshan Port
• Bibliography
• Index