Preventing a massive oil spill
In short
We modeled what would happen if a decaying Red Sea oil tanker were to spill. Our modeled results helped open negotiations between warring parties over how to prevent the spill. The UN brokered and organized the salvage operation, and within years, the oil was safely offloaded, averting a disaster.
What we did
We used computational simulation modeling to estimate the health, water, and food impacts of an oil spill from the FSO Safer, a decaying tanker that had been holding 1.1 million barrels of oil.
What we found
Our results found that a spill would've potentially been a multi-country international disaster, affecting clean water, food supplies, fisheries, and global trade.
What changed
We worked with journalists and advocacy organizations to raise visibility and find ways to offload the oil from the tanker. According to The Guardian, negotiations between warring parties over how to safely avert a spill were initially traced back to our simulations, which gave both parties a shared reason to act. Within less than two years, the UN crowdfunded and brokered the operation from there, and all 1.1 million barrels were safely moved to a replacement vessel.
Sources
Coverage
- BBC
- CNN
- The Economist
- The Guardian
- Al Jazeera
- The New Yorker(our letter to the editor)
- The World
Huynh BQ, Kwong LH, Kiang MV, Chin ET, Mohareb AM, Jumaan AO, Basu S, Geldsetzer P, Karaki FM, Rehkopf DH. Public health impacts of an imminent Red Sea oil spill. Nature Sustainability, October 11, 2021. doi:10.1038/s41893-021-00774-8