Clearing the seas: two new EU projects will tackle the toxic legacy of sea-dumped munitions

European seas, particularly the Baltic Sea, North Sea, and Mediterranean, are home to a significant number of dumped explosive and chemical munitions, including bombs, artillery shells, and other explosive ordnance. These munitions were disposed of at sea after World War I and II, as well as during the Cold War era.

The dumped munitions pose a significant threat to the marine environment, human health, and economic activities such as fishing, shipping, and offshore energy production.

Two new EU funded projects will enhance knowledge, capability and capacity to mitigate the threats from dumped munitions to Europe's seas.

The MMinE-SwEEPER project(Marine Munition in Europe - Solutions with Economic and Ecological Profits for Efficient Remediation) is funded under Horizon Europe (Cluster 3: Civil Security for Society). The project will develop advanced technologies for detecting and identifying munitions, monitoring environmental contamination, predicting the spread of contaminants and corrosion, and creating a secure data sharing platform.

The MUNI-RISK project(Risk assessment of sea-dumped munitions in the Baltic Sea) is funded under the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF). The project will assess the environmental risks posed by submerged munitions in the Baltic Sea, fill knowledge gaps and determine the factors to take into account for appropriate risk assessments. It will also establish priority geographical areas where appropriate action should be taken.

The project will create a comprehensive database of existing data, identify areas of greatest concern, and conduct site-specific risk assessments for planned wind farms.

The two projects will collaborate on sharing information and best practices to improve their results. The projects have just started their activities and will run respectively until March 2028 and October 2027.

During the joint kick-off meeting with the European Commission today, Prof. Dr. Jens Greinert from GEOMAR, which coordinates MMinE-SwEEPER and participates in MUNI-RISK, expressed his strong confidence that the joined start of these two projects will bring the awareness and also willingness to take efforts to deal with marine munitions in Europe to a next level.

"I hope, and am quite confident that these two projects, building on previous projects and complementing relevant actions by the EU and Member States, will finally push towards a truly European approach for addressing this issue, in time to mitigate the serious problems.

Scientists are ready and have established good collaborations, now national authorities must follow and discuss how to tackle the problem jointly."