The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) co-ordinates Australia's international responsibilities in the area of marine environment protection and oil spill response for 18,000,000 square miles of ocean (approx 1/9th of the globe's surface area). Since October 1999, AMSA have been using ASA's oil spill model, OILMAP, to combat and predict the movement of oil spilled at sea. During this time the Asia-Pacific ASA have assisted AMSA staff with technical support in respect to software related issues and/or methodology issues, as part of their daily operations.
As of the 1 July 2003 the Asia-Pacific ASA have been assisting AMSA to expand and improve on the bathymetry and tidal database for a number of Australia's known high-risk area's, including the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Sydney Harbour. Also as part of the improvement process, HYDROMAP (ASA's ocean/coastal hydrodynamic model) had recently been tested and validated for a oil spill ground validation exercise undertaken by AMSA, in Moreton Bay, Brisbane during 17-18 June 2003.
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