Using numerical simulation models in risk assessments for oil spills on land often requires evaluating numerous scenarios. Numerical models can be used to determine where the oil will go, when will it reach certain areas and what depths will the oil reach. To be able to provide practical answers to these questions, models should account for the flow of the viscous fluid over irregular terrain. However, most computer models reviewed, either use a limited one-dimensional approximation or are not able to capture complex topography. This paper describes the main capabilities of OilFlow2D that is a high-performance numerical model to simulate viscous flows with a free surface over any terrain that may include buildings, roads, or any urban or natural obstacles. The model uses adaptive triangular-cell meshes to allow resolving the oil flow around key features in complex environments. The computer code is parallelized to run in multiple-core processors leading to very short run times. To validate the model, the paper presents a test of a dam-break experiment in a flume where the model results compare well with measured depths. To illustrate the model performance in a real project, we simulate 10 simultaneous spills from an oil pipeline over a real topography. For this case, the model requires only 16 seconds to simulate a 1-hour spill. We suggest that OilFlow2D accuracy and performance would facilitate for rapid assessments of overland oil spills in 2D, which can benefit emergency operations and oil-spill risk assessments.
