Is relative pronoun 'which' missing?

Question

(1) This has caused a lot of damage to the environment. This damage leads to a loss of biodiversity.

(2) This has caused a lot of damage to the environment, which leads to a loss of biodiversity.

(3) This has caused a lot of damage to the environment, leading to a loss of biodiversity.

Sentence (3) seems to lack the relative pronoun 'which' (compare to (2)). Is (2) supposed to be better than (3), or is (3) correct too?

Answer 1

Your three examples are fine. On the other hand, adding 'which' to example 3 would be wrong.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv106.shtml

Generally speaking, the participial clause, starting with -ing or -ed, is more characteristic of written English, as it allows us to say the same thing as a relative clause, starting with who, which or that, but with fewer words.

https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/participle-clauses.html#:~:text=1%3A%20A%20present%20participle%20(verb,is%20a%20friend%20of%20mine).

Participle Clauses Reduced Relative Clauses

We can use participle clauses after a noun in the same way as relative clauses. This gives more information about the noun. We sometimes call this a 'reduced relative clause'.

The man driving the car is a friend of mine. (= The man who is driving the car is a friend of mine).

We read the email sent by the manager. (= We read the email that had been sent by the manager).