What does this tool show?

This dashboard estimates how shipwrecks are likely to degrade over time based on local environmental conditions, material type, and biological activity, including wood-boring organisms such as Teredo.

Key outputs

• Time to threshold: Estimated years until a wreck reaches a given degradation class.
• Risk category: A simplified interpretation of time-to-threshold for management use.
• Relative ageing speed: How quickly decay progresses compared with a reference steel wreck.
• Total decay rate: Relative modelled rate of movement through condition states, combining physical, chemical, and biological modifiers.
• Decay processes chart: Relative shares of steel corrosion, wood physical decay, biological decay, and teredo in the total decay rate.
• Environmental modifiers chart: Shows how environmental response functions modify physics-driven decay at the selected site. Values close to 1 indicate conditions that are favourable (non-limiting), while lower values indicate stronger constraint. Oxygen is treated as a resource-limitation term, whereas salinity, temperature, exposure, and burial act as environmental constraints or modifiers. A factor may appear consistently high but still have limited influence on spatial patterns if it varies little across the region.
• Site assessment: A short summary of likely outlook at the selected location.
• Condition planning: A scenario tool for projecting future condition from a known current state, and estimating indicative wreck age from current condition at the selected site.

How to interpret the maps and charts

• Warm colours generally indicate faster decay or shorter time to threshold.
• Cool colours indicate slower decay or longer persistence.
• Risk categories translate model timing into a simpler management-facing view.
• The risk map includes a 'Beyond 300 years' class for valid model cells that do not reach the selected threshold within the model horizon.
• The decay processes chart shows which degradation mechanisms dominate at the selected site.
• The environmental modifiers chart shows whether local conditions are favourable or limiting for physics-driven decay. A high value means that factor is not strongly suppressing decay; a low value indicates stronger limitation or protection.
• Oxygen may appear consistently high where the region is well oxygenated; in that case it is not a major spatial driver, even though it remains part of the model.
• The Condition planning tab always uses the location currently selected on the map in the Map & Explorer tab.
• Results are comparative and scenario-based, rather than exact forecasts.

Forward vs backward interpretation

• Time to threshold (map and site assessment): projects how long it will take for a site to reach a given condition, starting from its current state.
• Indicative age assessment: interprets how far along the degradation pathway the site appears to be, based on its current condition.
• These represent different perspectives on the same process and are not expected to produce matching values.
• Differences arise because one describes future change, while the other infers past progression under local conditions.

Risk interpretation

• Critical: < 20 years to selected class
• High: 20–50 years
• Moderate: 50–100 years
• Low: 100–300 years
• Beyond 300 years: Threshold not reached within the model horizon

Important notes

• The model is calibrated mainly using steel wreck data.
• Wood and mixed-material scenarios are more exploratory.
• Local burial, exposure, salinity, and oxygen strongly influence outcomes.
• The model estimates time to observed condition states, not exact structural failure of individual wrecks.
• The dashboard is best used for screening, comparison, prioritisation, and indicative scenario testing.
• Condition-planning hindcasts interpret degradation history under current environmental conditions and are indicative, not precise estimates of sinking date.