MAR. 24, 2025 — The Trajectory Analysis Planner, or TAP, is an important tool in the NOAA Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R)’s suite of oil spill response and planning tools.

TAP estimates the probability that an oil spill from potential sources might threaten specific shorelines, including how long it might take for spilled oil to arrive onshore, which locations could be most heavily impacted, and how much oil might threaten a location. These results help the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and state and local responders to prepare for and limit environmental damage from potential oil spill events.

With funding from and in collaboration with the USCG Great Lakes Oil Spill Center of Expertise (GLCOE), OR&R has developed a new TAP project for Lake Erie simulating spills from 20 potential spill sites in the Lake Erie area—including 13 shoreline sites where oil is stored or transferred and seven sites in shipping lanes where incidents could occur.

Modeling Oil’s Behavior in Lake Erie Ice

Implementations of TAP analyze hundreds of trajectory runs of OR&R’s GNOME (General NOAA Operational Modeling Environment) tool, driven by modeled wind and water currents. Unique to the new Lake Erie TAP is the incorporation of ice concentration over a long time record.

An important advancement for Lake Erie TAP is that the effects of ice on oil transport are included in the model. Ice cover, shown to limit the transport of spilled oil, is highly variable on Lake Erie. Including this variable in the analysis aids in the development of realistic local-area contingency plans for oil spill response.

Support for Great Lakes Response Activities

The USCG GLCOE is mandated to identify gaps in oil spill research as it relates to the Great Lakes; conduct research, development, testing, and evaluation of response technologies and techniques; and educate and train responders in USCG District 9. This latest TAP project joins several other related advancements in the Great Lakes region.

“The addition of Lake Erie to NOAA’s WebTAP affords a new level of open access for contingency planners, community members, and anyone concerned about the possibility of oil spills in Lake Erie from known shoreline-based points or hypothetical maritime accidents out in the shipping lanes,” says USCG GLCOE Research Scientist Matt Alloy, Ph.D., who oversaw the project. “The addition of three different views—all-season, without ice present, and with ice present—demonstrates the need for contingency planning to account for seasonal factors such as ice cover.”

Oil spill responders and planners can view Lake Erie TAP results within OR&R’s WebTAP viewer.