The Worlds Most Dangerous Oceans

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

According to scientists at Southampton's Solent University released, some of the world's busiest oceans--areas that often rely on sea lanes for everything from shipping to travel-- are hotspots for shipwrecks. The new study was released Friday and carried out on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund.

These "danger zones" are often caused by adverse weather that will only increase with climate change, according to the study.

The South China Seas and East Indies, the East Mediterranean and Black Sea, and the North Sea and British Isles have had the most accidents between 1999 and 2011. There were 293 accidents in the South China Seas and East Indies, where more than 70 percent of the world's corals thrive. Most of the ships found in these wrecks are smaller and generally more than 20 years old. Operations on such ships are frequently conducted on the cheap, with substandard crew Almost half the accidents were caused when the ship foundered and were not due to collisions.

"Climate change predictions are likely to exacerbate the causes of foundering: storm surge, changing wind/wave climates, extreme weather events," the study reports.

In spite of the dire tone of the report, not all the news is bad. The shipping industry has had an 18 percent decrease in the amount of accidents it suffers since 1980. The accidents it has had have sparked both legislation and public outcry. One of the most prominent--and still publicly visible, even 24 years later--was the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker that ran aground in Prince William Sound in 1989 and spilled more than 11 million gallons of crude. The accident triggered the International Maritime Organization to require double hulls on oceangoing vessels.

In 1996, the Sea Empress tanker spilled 72,000 tons of crude near Wales. The following year, the Nakhodka sank off Japan and spilled 6,200 tons of crude. The MV Pallas floundered in the North Sea in 1998Although a small spill compared to the others mentioned here, its location in an  environmentally sensitive area caused widespread ecological devastation.  In 2002, the Prestige oil tanker caused the biggest environmental disaster in both Spain and Portugal. The vessel sank following a storm, releasing 70,000 tons of crude into the Atlantic Ocean.

The MV Rena cargo ship sank off New Zealand in 2011 while carrying 1,368 containers. Some 300 went overboard. In 2013, a Chinese fishing vessel ploughed into a 500-year-old coral reef off the Philippines and damaged 3,902 square meters. This was after a U.S. Navy vessel damaged a smaller area of the same reef earlier this year.