Risk Management For Unexploded Ordinance (UXO) In The Marine Environment

Abstract

After World Wars I and II large amounts of explosive ordnance remained undetonated. Already deployed ordnance was left uncollected and excess supplies were disposed of, sometimes recklessly. The result is that much of this unexploded ordnance (UXO) still exists in the environment, much of it throughout the world’s oceans, where it continuously presents a risk of serious harm to people and the environment. The purpose of this paper is to present a marine UXO risk assessment that could aid managers working in marine industries in mitigating the risks presented by marine UXOs. Using existing marine UXO literature, a list of 21 plausible UXO risk events was generated and then categorized into risk levels of low, medium, high, and very high using a novel risk matrix approach. The common pathways that determine interactions between people and marine UXOs were identified and the efficacy of a series of risk mitigation strategies were examined within the context of the identified risks.