Toxic risk from sunken ships off the Swedish coast

Both media and research focus has been put on the risk posed by sunken ships off the Swedish coast. One especially media friendly collection of wrecks are the wrecks on the Swedish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) off the island and lighthouse Måseskär (west of Orust on the Swedish west coast). After World War II German ships were sunk there by the allies, the ships were filled with German ammunition and chemical weapons. The number of ships, the amount of ammunition, what type of chemical weapons and so on is unclear. After reading reports from the latest investigations on site (Swedish Maritime Administration, 2015) it is clear that it is bad. However, the claims made over the last 20-30 years by journalists about the number of ships and amount of mustard gas is most probably exaggerated and a result of unreliable secondary sources. But let us not focus on those issues because the problems are real no matter what.

The work localizing and learning more about the wrecks off Sweden is an intriguing  mix of diving, ROVs, archive searches, risk analysis and classic detective work. It thus includes an important, challenging and close cooperation between researchers and practitioners. It is from 2016 decided that the (new) agency Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management (SwAM or HaV in Swedish) is responsible for the coordination of the work and late 2016 the first wrecks will be investigated for oil and emptied if oil is found. The first wreck to be drilled for oil is the Thetis in the Skagerrak. The SwAM is also aiming for IMO to ban fishing around the ammunition  ships off Måseskär on the Swedish EEZ.

The list of the most prioritized wrecks (the emergency to-do list) also include ships in other positions than off the Swedish west coast. One is just of my home island where I and many others often passes over it on the fairway to and from Stockholm. It is the cargo ship Harburg, she collided February 16, 1957 with the tanker Tinny. Harburg sank fast and 10 men were killed. Tinny of 16450 DWT, loaded with gasoline, was on her way to Stockholm and hit Harburg amidships and probably caused the boiler to explode and tare the ship up from inside. The collision pushed Harburg down under Tinnys keel. Harburg sits on approximately 30-37 m depth about 180 meters from shore. The ship is broken just in front of the first cargo hold with the bow lying flat on the ground and the aft part of the angle from the bottom. Harburg has previously leaked oil.

An interesting side story to this investigation is that neither fishermen nor fish are stupid ;-)

While on site the Swedish Maritime Administration used both side scan sonars and ROVs to investigate the wrecks. What was evident from the sonar data was that the waters are often used as fishing ground for bottom trawling. From the tracks it is clear that the fishermen knows the positions of all the wrecks and to a good job dragging the trawl in-between as shown on the picture below.

Tracks from bottom trawling. (C) the Swedish Maritime Administration, 2015.

However, also the fish seems to have grasped the important aspects of the situation and spend their time cramped together just around the wrecks. This is evident from the ROV reports as there was problems getting any shots of the wrecks and cargo onboard as a result of all the fish. (Sadly the Swedish Maritime Administration does not publish the pictures with the fish, the focus on the wreck. However, you can find fish also on those pictures as shown below.) I suspect that the fish has analyzed the fishermen's activity and now make sure to spend their time where they are out of reach for the trawlers...

ROV and side scan sonar pictures. Note the weapons on the ROV pictures and around the ships on the sonar picture, but also the fish on the top left picture. (C) the Swedish Maritime Administration, 2015.

Reference

Swedish Maritime Administration, 2015. Miljörisker sjunkna vrak II, Undersökningsmetoder och miljöaspekter [Environmental risks from sunken wrecks II, Investigation and environmental aspects]. Dnr: 1399-14-01942-15. Swedish Maritime Administration

Who owns a problem definition?

It’s no secret that I’m inspired by operation analysis when it comes to my scientific views. Operations analysis evolved as a problem oriented science with the focus to support decision makers when facing complex problems. Such problems depends on how they are defined and for example on where you put you system boundaries.
In the book ‘System – Att tänka över samhälle och teknik’ (English translation: ‘Systems – To think about societies and technology’) Professor Lars Ingelstam describes the idea of systems and system sciences. He also talks about operational analysis and what Ingelstam calls the democracy-analytical dilemma:

Whit what right does a researcher or analyst question how a politician elected by the people define their problems?

As Ingelstam states it is of course an analyst's role to also work with the problem definition. A decision maker can, despite good intentions, have defined a vague problem or misjudged assumptions or misunderstood the underlying causal relationships. But, as Ingelstam caustions, the challenge does not stop there. Who is to stop the analyst from trying to fit the problem to his or her favorite tool or own interest (maybe as a result of a too inbreeded academic environment).

Therefore, we system analyst cannot take problem definitions for granted, but should also encourage decision makers to challenge our analysis and it is in that dialog we can get closer to the ‘truth’. Today’s problems are complex in my field, and in most other fields as well, but as Mike C Jackson writes “we have no right to be pessimistic … given the suffering that results from these problems”.

Ingelstam, L. (2012). System, Att tänka över samhälle och teknik [Systems – To think about societies and technology]. Eskilstuna, the Swedish Energy Agency.

Jackson, M. C. (1995). "Beyond the fads: Systems thinking for managers." Systems Research 12(1): 25-42.

Influences on threat assessment in a military context

I've had the pleasure of assisting a colleague in writing an article now published in Defense and Security Analysis (ISSN 1475-1798, E-ISSN 1475-1801):

Abstract
The anchoring effect is a well-studied subject. This article connects the effect with the rules-in-use within a military intelligence institution. Particularly the rules-in-use that dictate that an analyst takes his or hers starting point from recently conducted assessments of the specific area or threat. The threat assessment as well as the written assessment were affected. The results show that officers have an aversion to lower a previous given threat assessment. This gives that to understand risk assessment we not only need to understand the methods used, we also need to understand the institutions in which they are used. This is especially relevant for military intelligence as the assessments are conducted in an environment of high uncertainty.

Authors: Martin Bang and Hans Liwång
Department of Military Studies, Swedish Defence University, 11593, Stockholm, Sweden.

Bang, M.& Liwång, H. (2016). Influences on threat assessment in a military context.Defense and Security Analysis.

Boaty McBoatface, why not?

I’m into research and I like boats, both serious boats  for research and boats for recreational use even if they sometimes aren’t serious. I don’t like boats with stuck up names!

English is not my native language and most names sounds more promising if they are originate from another language, but I know there are many names much worse than Boaty McBoatface. I also hope to think that the ship and it's tasks are bigger than the name of the ship, any name.

I wish Draken Harald Hårfagre fair winds!

Updated April 26 2016:

The world´s largest viking ship Draken Harald Hårfagre has now left Haugesund, Norway and sails towards Canada and USA via Iceland, Greenland. They will cross the North Atlantic Ocean, to explore the world as the Vikings did a thousand years ago. On their webpage (see link above) you can follow the ship's progress.

The 33-person strong crew will most likely have a exciting (and challenging) voyage with the harsh conditions upon them all the time and with only a tent as protection when sleeping. I'm not a history buff, but this project I like!

Bon voyage and fair winds!

Maritime security: information has gone missing?

I’ve followed maritime security with a systematic approach since 2010. In my research, and when discussing maritime security measures with ship operators, reliable and systematic descriptions of incidents are important. Without such information also I’m left with nothing but guesswork. I’ve over the years come across information or descriptions of incidents that doesn’t appear in the statistics or correspond with the general beliefs.

Case 1. The first discrepancy is that one about the effectiveness of armed guards on ships which is by many claimed to be 100% effective off Somalia. I’ve heard many say “a ship with armed guards have never been successfully attacked by pirates (off Somalia)”. This is off course not a true statement:

Firstly: at sea (and in many other situations) nothing is 100% except the fact that you don’t have all the information.

Secondly: I’ve heard a couple of very reliable accounts about incidents off Somalia from different years, situations and ships describing successful boarding’s on ships with armed guards. A typical end to such an incident is that the armed guards throw their weapons over board when they realize they are beaten and the company providing the guards takes responsibility over (not) reporting the incident.

Thirdly: The people typically making claims about armed guards being the only 100% effective measure (ship operator executives) should be smart enough to know that the claim isn’t true.

Fourth: In other areas, such as off Nigeria, even the official effectiveness of armed guards is far from 100%.

I don’t know the correct figure for the effectiveness of armed guards off Somalia (it is however high) and I’ve not tried to investigate it either. My point is that the case of armed guards is an example of how poorly the truth sometimes is treated when reporting maritime security incidents.

Case 2. For a coming publication I searched for records of incidents off West Africa 2012 and 2013 that wasn’t included in the official ICC International Maritime Bureau (IMB [https://icc-ccs.org/]) statistics. I found some records illustrating that incidents without consequences, i.e., such as a suspicious approach without boarding, not always was reported. This is not surprising, for many seafarers this as seen as a normal, but unpleasant, day in that area. I.e., nothing to report.

More surprising was the high profile incidents I found where the paper trail was disappearing fast. With high profile I here mean European or North American ship operators in combination with severe consequences such as kidnapping. For a couple of such incidents (I found four) no records at all were included in the IMB incidents description even though there were newspaper articles describing at least some aspects of the incidents.

I understand that reporting such incidents isn’t your first priority or sometimes not even possible during an attack. But it should be in the industry’s interest that at least some basic aspects such as date, time, position, and consequence in general terms are reported in the days or weeks after. This to make sure that the situation at sea can be captured, communicated and reacted on as correctly as possible. Especially given the sea blindness shore based decision-makers seem have.

It takes (at least) two to tango

I, as many else, have noticed the US information about the interactions between the USS Donald Cook and two Russian SU-24 airplanes on internarial water in the Baltic Sea. According to the New YorkTimes who bases their information on White House sources the planes “violated professional military norms over the Baltic Sea when one of its planes flew ‘dangerously close’ to an American ship and a Polish aircraft”.

Based on the video footage it’s clear that the basic information is true, but how to define “professional military norms” and “dangerously close” is off course debatable and is as much up to culture as anything. I’m convinced that the definition of these concepts differ between US and Russia and most probably also within US such as between an US navy pilot and a politician in the White House.

The Baltic Sea a more quite day. Photo © Hans Liwång.

The flight has also by Congressman Adam Kinzinger been described as a practice attack. Based on my knowledge it does not look like an attack, it looks like a message being communicated as well as a photo opportunity. The message being communicated by the Russian planes to me looks very much the same as the message most military forces is communicating in general and more specifically by USS Donald Cook by being in the Baltic Sea.

There is a DANGEROUS dance being performed in the Baltic Sea with more than two dancers.