{"id":13322,"date":"2025-01-02T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=13322"},"modified":"2024-12-16T07:13:21","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T07:13:21","slug":"polluting-shipwrecks-ticking-time-bomb-oceans-environmental-risks-january-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/polluting-shipwrecks-ticking-time-bomb-oceans-environmental-risks-january-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Polluting shipwrecks are the ticking time-bomb at the bottom of our oceans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\n \n
\n \n Sergemi \/ Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n Fraser Sturt<\/a>, University of Southampton<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n

At the bottom of the oceans and seas lie more than 8,500 shipwrecks from\ntwo world wars. These wrecks have been estimated to contain as much as 6 billion gallons of oil<\/a>, as well as munitions<\/a>, toxic heavy metals<\/a> and even chemical weapons.<\/p>\n\n

For decades, these wrecks have largely lain out of site and out of mind. But\nall this time, their structures have been degrading<\/a>, inexorably increasing the chances of sudden releases of toxic substances into the marine environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

In parts of the globe, climate change is exacerbating this risk. Rising ocean\ntemperatures, acidification and increasing storminess accelerate the breakdown of\nthese wrecks. <\/p>\n\n

Of course, wrecks from the world wars are far from the only ones to be found at the bottom of the sea, with many others adding to the problem. The cost of addressing this global issue has been estimated at US$340 billion (\u00a3261 billion)<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

How many of these wrecks pose a threat to people\u2019s safety, to coastal communities and to the environment? What can be done \u2013 and why haven\u2019t we done it sooner?<\/p>\n\n

Mapping the problem<\/h2>\n\n

The raw figures in dollars and the numbers of wrecks on the map rightly cause concern. Work by researchers such as Paul Heersink<\/a> have drawn together different datasets to help visualise the scale of the challenge. Yet these figures, and the position of dots on maps, may also give a false sense of certainty.<\/p>\n\n

It remains the case that the world\u2019s oceans and seas are not as well mapped as we\nwould like, with about 23% having been described and mapped in detail. Even that level of detail often falls short of what we need to positively identify a wreck, let alone determine the risk it might pose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is an ongoing global push to improve our mapping of ocean space under the\nauspices of the Seabed 2030 project<\/a>, which is looking to reach a universal resolution of 100x100m. That means one \u201cpixel\u201d of information would be equivalent to about two football pitches. This will be transformative for our understanding of the ocean floor, but will not reveal the detail of all those things that you could hide within those two football pitches (which includes quite a few wrecks). <\/p>\n\n

Many of the wrecks that may pose the greatest problems are found in shallower coastal waters, where government mapping initiatives and work by industry provide much higher resolutions, yet still the challenge of identification remains.<\/p>\n\n

What about archival records? Historical records, such as those held by Lloyd\u2019s Register Foundation<\/a> in London, are fundamental to bringing greater certainty to the scale and nature of the challenge. They contain the details of ship structures, cargos carried and last known positions prior to loss.<\/p>\n\n

The accuracy of those positions, however, is variable, meaning that knowing exactly\nwhere on the seabed a wreck might be, and so how to survey it and assess its risk, is not straightforward. This is placed in stark relief by the work of British maritime archaeologist Innes McCartney<\/a> and oceanographer Mike Roberts<\/a>, whose detailed geophysical and archival investigations in the Irish Sea demonstrated that historic wrecks have been frequently misattributed and mislocated. This means that the dots on the map are often in the wrong places, and up to 60% can be sitting in unknown locations on the sea floor.<\/p>\n\n

\n \"Wreck\n
\n <\/span>\n Naoto Jack Fukushima \/ Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n

A race against time<\/h2>\n\n

Most of the wrecks causing greatest concern are of metal, or metal and wood\nconstruction. The steel in these wrecks is slowly degrading, increasing the chance of cargos being spilt, and components breaking down. However, this is only part of the risk. <\/p>\n\n

The sea is becoming an ever busier place, as we carry out more intensive\nfishing and ramp up the construction of offshore wind farms and other\nenergy installations to meet net zero commitments. These all affect the seabed and can physically disturb or change the dynamics of wreck sites.<\/p>\n\n

There is increasing global recognition<\/a> of the need to address this problem. It has remained unresolved to date because of the complex international and interdisciplinary challenge it poses.<\/p>\n\n

Many of the wrecks lie in waters off countries that have nothing to do with the original owner of the ship<\/a>. How then, do we determine who is responsible? And who pays for the clean-up \u2013 especially when the original owner benefits from the legal loophole of sovereign immunity? Under this concept, the flag State (the country where the ship is registered) cannot be held responsible under international law and therefore is not legally obliged to pay up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond these fundamental questions of responsibility, there are technical\nchallenges. It\u2019s difficult to know exactly how many wrecks of concern there are, and how to locate them. So how do we assess their condition and determine if intervention is needed? And if so, how do we intervene?<\/p>\n\n

Each of these questions is a complex challenge, and solving them requires the\ncontributions of historians, archaeologists, engineers, biologists, geophysicists,\ngeochemists, hydrographic surveyors, geospatial data analysts and engineers.<\/p>\n\n

This has already been happening, with regional projects making critical headway\nand demonstrating what can be achieved. However, the immense scale of the\nproblem outweighs the amount of work done to date.<\/p>\n\n

New technologies are clearly critical, as are new attitudes. At the heart of the\nproblem is an issue of knowledge and certainty \u2013 is this the wreck we think it is, does it pose a problem and if so, over what time scale?<\/p>\n\n

Advances in subsea drones known as Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), which are fitted with an array of sensors to measure the seabed and detect pollutants, could help<\/a> enhance our knowledge about the locations of wrecks, what they\u2019re carrying and their state of deterioration. AUVs can provide relatively cheap, high resolution data that produces fewer emissions than a comparable survey campaign conducted from a large research vessel.<\/p>\n\n

But we also need to share that information, and compare it with data from archives to help generate knowledge and higher levels of certainty. Too often, underwater surveys and investigations occur in silos, with data held by individual agencies or companies, preventing a rapid and cumulative increase in understanding.<\/p>\n\n

The severity of the environmental and safety risk posed by wrecks on the ocean floor, and how it changes over time, is not fully known. But this is a problem we can solve. <\/p>\n\n

Action is needed now, driven by a robust regulatory and funding framework, and\ntechnical standards for remediation. A global partnership \u2013 codenamed Project Tangaroa<\/a> \u2013 has been convened to stimulate that framework \u2013 but political will and financing is required to make it a reality.<\/p>\n\n

Through targeted archival and survey work, and by sharing data and ideas, we can chart a course to a future where the sea is not a place where we ignore things today that will threaten us tomorrow.\"The<\/p>\n\n

Fraser Sturt<\/a>, Professor of Archaeology, University of Southampton<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sergemi \/ Shutterstock Fraser Sturt, University of Southampton At the bottom of the oceans and seas lie more…\n","protected":false},"author":1039,"featured_media":13324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/a\/ae\/Shipwreck_Batumi_Georgia_R_Bartz.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3192,3200,3201,3191,3195,3187,3193,3198,3194,3197,3199,3196,474,3190,3188,3189],"class_list":{"0":"post-13322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-earth","8":"tag-autonomous-underwater-vehicles-auvs","9":"tag-climate-change-impact-on-wrecks","10":"tag-international-ocean-cleanup","11":"tag-marine-environmental-risk","12":"tag-ocean-floor-mapping","13":"tag-oil-spills-from-shipwrecks","14":"tag-polluting-shipwrecks","15":"tag-project-tangaroa","16":"tag-seabed-2030-project","17":"tag-shipwreck-environmental-hazards","18":"tag-shipwreck-remediation","19":"tag-sovereign-immunity-shipwrecks","20":"tag-the-conversation","21":"tag-toxic-shipwreck-cargo","22":"tag-underwater-pollution","23":"tag-world-war-shipwrecks","24":"cs-entry","25":"cs-video-wrap"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1039"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13323,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13322\/revisions\/13323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}