The most obvious causes of pollution are the contents of the ships themselves. During the Second World War alone, it is estimated that at least 20,000 ships were sunk around the world, with many more lost during other conflicts throughout this period. Whereas their wooden predecessors decayed quickly and left little in the way of contamination, these newer ships left a variety of pollutants behind when they were sunk during skirmishes, battles and accidents. Naval arms races in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries led to the development of increasingly powerful vessels, with ships increasingly made of metal and powered by oil and other fossil fuels. How do shipwrecks contaminate the environment? 'As such, the environmental impact of these vessels is still evolving.' As they get older, their environmental risk might increase due to corrosion opening up previously enclosed spaces. 'Wrecks, some of which we don't even remember are there, are leaching chemicals, fossil fuels and heavy metals into the water. Ghent University PhD student Josefien Van Landuyt, who led the research, says, 'People often forget that below the ocean's surface, humanity has already made quite an impact on the local animals, microbes, and plants living there.' A new study, published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, reveals that chemicals are influencing which microbes live around sunken vessels. With areas such as the North Sea increasingly being developed for windfarms, fisheries and undersea farming, understanding these wrecks is more important than ever. Many of these wrecks, deemed too costly or dangerous to clean up, have been leaking chemicals into the water for decades.
Millions of tonnes of munitions, fuel and other chemicals were sunk during the conflicts, with much of the material still lying at the bottom of the world's oceans today. Pollution from ships sunk during the First and Second World War are affecting undersea ecosystems.
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