Potential UXO seabed migration in the German Bight

Severe storms marked by very high wave conditions occur several times per year in the German Bight (North Sea). In places and at certain times the wave-induced flows at the seabed are then powerful enough to significantly displace exposed, heavy UXO such as mines and bombs from the two world wars. To investigate we used kinematic modelling of the objects supported by good-resolution wave and current data. We tested the results against actual observations. Return times on likely object migra-tion are the output. The result provides a more precise and quantitative understanding of UXO object behaviour under the severe storm conditions of the Bight. Subsea infrastructure projects in the region need no longer assume that movements occur everywhere, but have tools to determine where and when different objects in the spectrum of UXO have the potential to migrate and repopulate the operat-ing areas.

UXO | UXO migration | storm events | seabed | return time