Environmental sensitivity mapping and risk assessment for oil spill along the Chennai Coast in India.

Integration of oil spill modeling with coastal resource information could be useful for protecting the coastal environment from oil spills. A scenario-based risk assessment and sensitivity indexing were performed for the Chennai coast by integrating a coastal resource information system and an oil spill trajectory model. The fate analysis of spilled oil showed that 55% of oil out of a total volume of 100m(3) remained in the water column, affecting 800m of the shoreline.