Coastal waters around the world are contaminated with munitions from the two World Wars (World War I
and World War II); in the German part of the North Sea and Baltic Sea alone, there are about 1.6 million
tonnes of munitions. The distribution and condition of the munitions in German waters are not sufficiently
known. In addition to the explosion and safety risk, these munitions contain cytotoxic, genotoxic and
carcinogenic chemicals in combination with conventional explosives, chemical warfare agents and
munitions components.
The aim of CONMAR-Modelling is to integrate existing and new datasets on historic marine munitions into
an existing oceanographic modelling system to advance our scientific understanding of the role, fate and
effects of marine munitions in the environment and to provide policy solutions for monitoring and
remediation in consultation with stakeholders.
The model system will allow us to test these monitoring and remediation measures and optimise them in
advance, to find socially acceptable and cost-effective solutions.