engleski

Environmental security of the Adriatic coastal sea floor

Security is no longer only exclusive part of the military and political spheres, but a complex phenomenon that demands a comprehensive approach, which includes socio-economic and environmental issues. One critical aspect of this integral approach concerns seas and coasts, on which local population relies for sustenance and livelihood options, and which underpins vital economic sectors such as trade, tourism, energy and defence. The protection of the coastal sea waters and harbours is of paramount importance for littoral nations. This has been a task with the increasing difficulty for its implementation due to the increase in sea traffic volume, both cargo and passengers, increase in other activities from tourism to resource exploitation. Lately, a new item has been added to this task, namely, protection from the eventual terrorist activities. The coastal sea floor is littered with many of man made objects and materials including a variety of ammunition. In addition, sediments in ports, harbors and marinas have increased concentrations of chemicals used as biocides in antifouling paints. Therefore, one has to develop capabilities of measuring concentrations of chemical elements in the sediments, determining the content of different containers, establishing the presence of threat materials, identifying the material within sunken ships. All littoral nations are investing lots of effort into the remediation of their coastal areas. In this report our efforts in evaluation of environmental security of specific locations in the eastern Adriatic Sea are being discussed. The length of Croatian Adriatic coast is on the continent 1, 880 km and on islands 4, 398 km, the total being 6, 278 km. Croatia has 1, 242 islands, large and small, populated with some 130, 000 inhabitants. Coastal region of Croatia is divided into seven administrative units, counties, called “ županija” . In this report the locations in Adriatic Sea and whole Mediterranean for which there are evidences that are contaminated by different ammunition are presented, as well as the maps showing the mine fields in the Adriatic Sea after the World War II. It is well established that today’ s reports on the findings of ship mines correspond to the edges of mine fields from the WW II. The available data and information on explosive devices found in Adriatic Sea are collected ; the tabular presentation on types and locations of explosive devices has been given. The locations of explosive devices, listed by counties, are known from the information collection campaign. It is estimated that on locations along Croatian Adriatic coast there are about 250 000 tons of explosives. The characteristics of explosive devices which could be found on the bottom of the sea are presented. Since the official Standard Operational Procedures (SOP) do not exist we have listed in this report the operational procedures which must be respected when the explosive device is found and when the location for its temporary removal is determined. In addition, we have so far collected some 500 sediment samples corresponding to approximately one sediment sample per 12.5 km of the coastal line. The collected sediment samples have been analyzed for 18 chemical elements by using EDXRF as an analytical tool. Contour maps of antifouling biocide elements (Cu, Zn, As and Pb) have been generated for the entire eastern coast of Adriatic Sea indicating the locations of “ hot spots” in the distribution of chemical elements used as biocides (Cu, Zn, As, Pb). In order to be able to establish if an object on the sea floor contains some sort of threat material (explosives, chemical warfare) a system using neutron sensor installed within an unmanned underwater vessel has been developed and tested. When positioned above the object such a system can inspect the object for the presence of the threat material by using alpha particle tagged neutrons from the sealed tube d+t neutron generator. It is often required to inspect ship hulls, either to detect potential anomalies attached to the hull, or to determine the nature of materials within hull, especially of sunken ships. We have performed tests with our system submerged in the test basin filled with sea water with targets being: 10 litters of diesel fuel, 5 kg of explosive and different chemicals (expected components of chemical warfare agents) placed behind 16 mm steel plate in the first measurement and behind sandwich 18 mm steel plate – 10 cm air bag – 16 mm steel plate in the second measurement, respectively.

neutron activation analysis; sea floor; security

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