Die Kuste, 81 (2014), 255-271 
257 
3.2 Container drift in die German Bight 264 
4 Concluding remarks and perspectives 269 
5 Acknowledgement 270 
6 References 270 
1 Introduction 
During and after die Deepwater Horizon oil spill caused by a drilling rig explosion in the 
Gulf of Mexico on 20 April 2010 oil spill models where intensively used to get an insight 
in patiiways and fade of the enormous amounts of oil tiiat have entered die ocean. Many 
countries around the world have built up an oil spill modelling capacity over the last 
decades which have been scrutinized in die light of tiiis major accident at several places. 
Oil spill models have become widely accepted and applied tools to assist die combat 
ting of oil spills at sea. Several different drift models are operated by marine agencies, 
coastguards and institutions around die Nordi and Baltic Sea. The Norwegian Meteoro 
logical Institute (met.no) develops OD3D and uses this as well as OSCAR in dieir fore 
casts. In Belgium die drift models FLOAT and OSERIT are developed and hosted by 
RBINS-MLTMM and are used by the Belgian coastguard agency. In die LTK CEFAS is 
responsible for doing die operational drift forecasts and they use their in-house devel 
oped CEFAS SPILL and commercial solutions like OILMAP or OSCAR In die Nether 
lands RWS and Deltares use as well die commercial software OILMAP and also 
CHEMMAP. METEO-FRANCE is also able to do drift simulations in die Nordi Sea 
with dieir drift model MOTHY, although this is not dieir main region of interest. Most of 
the models are very specialized towards simulation of oil at sea, whereas otiiers are more 
generalized drift and dispersion models which can be applied to a wide range of applica 
tions like search-and-rescue at sea, the drift of all kinds of objects, including lost contain 
ers or buoys that have broken loose, and last but not least the fade of floating or sub 
merged oil. 
The Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) has, among several otiier du 
ties, the task to support the combatting of oil pollution in German territorial waters. This 
includes botii, die support of die parties involved in oil combatting, e.g. die Central 
Command for Marine Emergencies, directly after an oil spill has happened as well as — at 
a later stage — the support of the prosecuting authorities in identifying the polluter in case 
of an illegal discharge. In order to fulfill tiiis task BSH runs and maintains a comprehen 
sive numerical model system. The system consists of several components. Two of diem, 
namely the three-dimensional ocean circulation model BSHcmod and the drift and dis 
persion model SeatrackWeb are of special importance for die topic at hand and will be 
described in some detail below. 
2 Model system 
This section provides an overview of the applied model system. Some of die important 
features of die core part of die SeatrackWeb drift model — PADM — and of the graphical 
user interface (GLT) are summarized. The area, where users can perform drift simulations 
with die BSH setup of SeatrackWeb is presented here as well.