Metocean Database for the offshore waters of Abu Dhabi, U.A.E

Deltares developed a highly accurate and detailed database of operational and extreme metocean parameters for the offshore waters of Abu Dhabi, U.A.E. The metocean database provides basic information for the planning of offshore installations and operations, as well as input for the design of offshore platforms, pipelines, artificial islands or other structures. The development of the metocean database was based on the latest available topographic, bathymetric and environmental information and state-of-the-art numerical models, statistical data pre- and post-processing and presentation tools. Recent marine surveys provided high-quality metocean measurements for calibrating and validating the applied models and the resulting database content.

Generally, metocean studies of an offshore region use pre-formatted output comprising metocean parameters, such as joint-occurrence tables and roses, for a limited number of locations at fixed distances. Using parallel computing of numerical wave, tide and storm surge models on a high-speed Linux cluster and data storage with high-speed interrogation of NetCDF data files, it was possible to derive multi-year hindcast time series and extreme statistics for a large set of relevant metocean parameter data at any location in a large offshore area. There is a purpose-built graphical user interface allowing users to carry out additional analyses, such as the assessment of down-time statistics at a planned offshore loading facility, of the retrieved hindcast time series. The new database with large, consistent and accurate datasets will eventually result in safer and cost-optimal offshore operations and designs. The challenge for us was to safeguard the high quality of all data analyses, hydrodynamic modelling and data processing, and therefore the database content.