Deep-Sea Impact Experiments and their Future Requirements

Abstract

In recent years, several experiments to assess the potential impacts due to deep-sea mining in the Pacific as well as the Indian Oceans have indicated the immediate changes and restoration patterns of environmental conditions in the marine ecosystem. The large volume of sediment ($ 500 Â 10 7 m 3 per year) estimated to be resuspended would be the major influencing factor in environmental impact in the mining area, leading to changes in availability of certain nutrients and composition of biomass, followed by gradual restoration. Important results have been obtained from these experiments, but in order to have a better understanding of the impacts and restoration processes, it will be necessary to improvise future experiments to resemble actual deep-sea mining in terms of scale and methodology.

A Southeast Atlantic deep‐ocean observatory: first experiences and results

“…A paired, or multiple observatory approach would be well suited to monitoring mining impacts relative to natural variations. The environmental impact assessments for such ventures are reliant on a very limited knowledge base of long-term change in the deep sea (Sharma 2005). Establishing that the impact predictions were realistic will require extended monitoring of both impacted and control sites-as we have initiated in the DELOS Angola project.…”

Experimental activities that intentionally perturb the marine environment: Implications for the marine environmental protection and marine scientific research provisions of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

“…Neither high seas freedoms nor activities subject to exclusive coastal state jurisdiction may be exercised without regard to the MEP provisions of UNCLOS ( [2], p. 352, priority of MEP over sovereign right to exploit resources), therefore it is in the interest of the researchers, the researching states, the coastal states and the international community that the MEP provisions are applied to these activities consistently and according to best scientific practices. 26 For the same reasons, it is unnecessary to distinguish between ''pure'' and ''applied'' research in this context, another distinction left undefined in UNCLOS. As also pointed out by another commentator [42], it is unnecessary to distinguish between exploring and exploiting resources in this regard.…”

“…Experimental mining of ferromanganese nodules over areas of up to 10 km 2 of the deep seabed in, e.g., the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone of the North Pacific Ocean [22], the Peru Basin of the Southeast Pacific Ocean [23,24], and the Central Indian Ocean [25,26], as well as of polymetallic sulphides in the Manus Basin north of Papua New Guinea and the Okinawa Trough off Japan [27] to assess, inter alia, potential environmental impacts of such mining.…”

A comprehensive approach for a techno-economic assessment of nodule mining in the deep sea

“…Using the nomograms and maps of the areas of potential commercial interest, it may be possible to ecologically investigate the affected seafloor area (MIDAS 2016b;Thiel and Schriever 1993;Sharma 2013). Mining nodule-rich mine sites in the best possible manner may reduce the areal extent of the impacted area.…”