in fondo al mar ~ Mapping toxic waste ships in the Mediterranean

About

In fondo al mar(under the sea) is a data-driven journalism project mapping out shipping accidents suspected of being involved in illegal waste dumping activities, that have been first revealed by judiciary and parliamentary inquiries.

The original project data stems from a research conducted at the archive of the Lloyd's Register of Shipping in London and it has been cross-referenced with information obtained from newspaper article, investigations of environmental organizations and specialist sites sites.

Maps, timelines and other forms of info-visualization are meant to allow users to navigate this complex dataset and see for themselves some of the anomalies that emerge from the data. But the goal is also to lay the foundations for future research on this case in order to ascertain what has happened and the possible health risks.

Bringing the poisons to the surface

They have been called "poison ships", "toxic ships", "disposable ships". They are dozens of commercial vessels, which misteriously sank during the last decades in the Mediterranean sea. The Aso foundered in 1979, off the city of Locri in Calabria, in Southern Italy; the Rigel deliberately sunken off Reggio Calabria in 1987, the Marco Polo foundered in the Canal of Sicily in 1993, as well as tens of less known shipping incidents which took place in more recent years.

The suspicion is that some of these ships have been deliberately sunk by a network of mafia groups and scruple-less entrepreneurs to cheaply dispose of tons of toxic, chemical and radioactive waste, avoiding the huge costs involved in correct disposal and make huge profits.

For almost thirty years, attempts have been made to move from suspicions to the ascertaining the truth and the punishment of those responsible. This investigation is obstacled by the difficlty of analysing the ships that often find themelves several thousand feet under the sea. What can be studied at the moment is instead the archival evidence and the worrying patterns that emerge from the data, including the anomalous frequency of incidents with some years with many more incidents than normal, and the recurring locations of the incidents.

Traces of radioactivity above average were detected on containers and materials attributable to some of the accidents, and the presence of cesium and thorium isotopes was found in algae and fish in the vicinity and there have been worries about possible consequences for public health.

The project invites experts and citizens to submit new information about suspicious naval incidents and provide additional information on cases already listed on the website.

To provide additional information write to
mail@infondoalmar.info

Invited conferences & exhibitions

Presentation at Ars Electronica 2010 - "Repair the Environment - Doing the right thing" panel, Linz (Austria) - September 6th, 2010
Exhibition at Ars Electronica 2010 Tabakfabrik - Building 2, Linz (Austria) - September 2-7, 2010
Presentation at H + Digital, Aesthetics, Methods, and Critiques of Information Visualization in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences - MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (USA) - May 2010
Special mention at "Digital Heretics 2010" - International Journalism Festival, Perugia (Italy) - April 2010
Exhibition at "JavaMuseum 2010 - Celebrate!" - 10 years of net-art, NewMediaFest 2010

Authors

in fondo al mar is an independent project made by David Boardman and Paolo Gerbaudo.

Acknowledgments

We thank the journalists of "il manifesto" Andrea Palladino and Alessandra Fava, and freelance journalist Emanuele Comi, for their contribution to the research conducted for this website. This updated version of the project draws on the research conducted by Enrico Murtula.

Press clippings

Poisoned Shipments: Are Strange, Illicit Sinkings Making the Mediterranean Toxic? - Scientific American (English), February 2010
in fondo al mar: le navi dei veleni svelate dal web - Sky TG24 (Italian), July 2010
Navi dei veleni, ecco la mappa on-line - Wired.it (Italian), June 2010
Mappe e classifiche dei disastri (in)naturali raccontano l'anno terribile dell'ambiente - IlSole24Ore.com (Italian), October 2010
"Ecomafia", definizione Wikipedia - versione italiana

Materials

Ars Electronica 2010 installation and speech - High resolution pictures (all rights reserved - ©Ars Electronica) hires_pictures.zip (ZIP, 3.3Mb)
Ars Electronica 2010 speech - Presentation document AEC_infondoalmar.pdf (PDF, 11.8Mb)
Press release for the project launch in November 2009: pr_infondoalmar.pdf (PDF, 229Kb)

Credits

The icons that were used in the map visualization are created by Peter Van Driel
The historic pictures of the ships are provided by ShipSpotting

Contacts

mail@infondoalmar.info