in.fondo.al.mar

in.fondo.al.mar (under the sea) is an info-visualisation project about a series of sinking incidents in the Mediterranean Sea, involving ships which are suspected of having carried toxic and radioactive waste. The project aims at “bringing the poisons afloat”, to spread information and to support the ongoing investigations on the case. The site gathers and displays different data available on the incidents and contains a map of the sinkings, a chronology of the incidents, as well as general statistics and individual records about the incidents and the ships involved. in.fondo.al.mar is a work-in-progress project, which will be subject to corrections and updates and welcomes the contributions of users and experts.

Context

For over 30 years, Italian mafia groups and scruple-less entrepreneurs have dumped tons of chemical and radioactive waste in the Mediterranean sea by deliberately sinking rusting ships loaded with hazardous cargoes. The existence of this criminal practice has been revealed by some famous cases that have been widely covered by Italian media. Nevertheless, despite abundant evidence about the extent of this criminal traffic no comprehensive institutional inquiry has been conducted on this scandal.

In face of the inertia of national and international institutions on this case, infondoalmar.info aims at initiating a grassroots and participatory inquiry about toxic and radioactive dumping in the Mediterranean Sea. It invites citizens to intervene in the construction of a grassroots map of the scandal to clarify the extent of this practice and envisage the possible consequences for public health and the environment.

Visitors can submit information about suspicious naval incidents and add information on cases already displayed by the website. Users’ submissions are then filtered by a desk made up of journalists and maritime researchers who are responsible for verifying users-generated content. The collective database on the scandal obtained through this two-step process is displayed through maps, timelines, stats pages, and other complex forms of information visualisation, which allow to make this complex scandal understandable also by lay people with no prior knowledge.

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