Mattia Scovenna

For planning the protection of the marine environment it is crucial to understand how water moves and how its movement influences the spread of any kind of substances through the ocean, from nutrients to pollutants. In this context the Lagrangian perspective has been used since the 1950s, to investigate the fluid motion both in atmosphere and in ocean. This approach has become more and more popular because it allows to store the whole history of particles’ trajectories, with which it is possible to develop mixing analysis to reveal the transport mechanisms occurring in the domain under study. Being ocean dynamics highly temporal and spatially variable, there are still many unanswered questions, especially in coastal areas wehre the current is influenced by the interaction with the coastline.

The main objective is to setup and validate a high-resolution Langrangian dispersion model in the Tyrrhenian sea with special focus on the harbour of Genova . This model will allow the prediction, in a timely manner, of the particles’ path in function of the meteocean conditions A second aim is to look for some particles' common behaviour through the application of the mixing descriptors.

First of all, a hydrodynamic model is built on Delft3D to obtain scenarios characteristics of the main sea states. Then, using OceanParcels, dispersion simulations are run to evaluate the trajectories of particles released inside the port of Genova. Finally, the latter model is optimized thorugh a drifter campaign.

Currently, no analysis have been conducted with a focus inside the harbour of Genova, or neither others harbours. Due to the high complexity of the harbor's shape, the particles behaviour will probably differs from the typical one already found in open sea by different authors.