Dr. Zodiatis George Dr George Zodiatis has more than 30 years of research experience in marine sciences. The last 15 years he is involved in the development of the operational oceanography in Europe, within the frame of the Copernicus marine service, participating in projects related to operational ocean forecasting and oil spill predictions. He led the development of the Cyprus Coastal Ocean Forecasting and Observing System-CYCOFOS. He is a co-developer of the well established oil spill prediction system, the MEDSLIK. He has been participated as a leader and as a partner in more than 33 research projects, most of them funded by the European Commission. He is a co-convener of the EGU session on Marine Pollution Assessment, Predictions and Risk Mapping. He has more than 120 publications in European and United States scientific journals and proceedings of conferences, as well as he has participated in more than a 100 conferences as invited and regular oral lecturer on topics related to ocean physics, marine environment, operational oceanography and oil spill predictions.
The risk from oil spill pollution in the Mediterranean is high due to the heavy traffic of merchant vessels for transporting oil and gas and to the increasing offshore platforms related to the hydrocarbon exploration. The basic response to major oil spills includes different measures and equipment. However, in order to make optimal use of such devices and to assist the response agencies, oil spill models are used in order to provide predictions of the drift and weathering of the oil slicks. The establishment of the ocean forecasting systems, together with the capability to detect oil slicks using satellite images, initiated the efforts for the implementation of a multi model integrated oil spill prediction system for the entire Mediterranean.. This implementation was carried out in the frame of the medess4ms.eu project. One of the well established oil spill prediction model is the MEDSLIK, used to provide predictions of the oil leakage or warnings from SAR images detecting possible oil slicks, in the frame of projects, such as EMODNET MedSea check point and RAOP–Med. The effect of response measurements, such as booms deployment, mechanical recovery and spray of dispersants can be examined virtually by MEDSLIK.