International Submarine Cables and Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction

Burnett, Douglas R.; Carter, Lionel

doi:10.1163/9789004351608

“…transmitting more than 98% of all digital data communications, including the internet and financial trading (Burnett and Carter, 2017). We are increasingly reliant on this global network, and on networks of subsea pipelines that support a growing demand for energy (Yergin, 2006;Carter, 2010).…”

Section: Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lessons learned from the monitoring of turbidity currents and guidance for future platform designs

Clare

¹

,

Lintern

²

,

Rosenberger³

et al. 2020

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Turbidity currents transport globally significant volumes of sediment and organic carbon into the deep-sea and pose a hazard to critical infrastructure. Despite advances in technology, their powerful nature often damages expensive instruments placed in their path. These challenges mean that turbidity currents have only been measured in a few locations worldwide, in relatively shallow water depths (<<2 km). Here, we share lessons from recent field deployments about how to design the platforms on which instruments are deployed. First, we show how monitoring platforms have been affected by turbidity currents including instability, displacement, tumbling and damage. Second, we relate these issues to specifics of the platform design, such as exposure of large surface area instruments within a flow and inadequate anchoring or seafloor support. Third, we provide recommended improvements to improve design by simplifying mooring configurations, minimising surface area, and enhancing seafloor stability. Finally we highlight novel multi-point moorings that avoid interaction between the instruments and the flow, and flow-resilient seafloor platforms with innovative engineering design features, such as ejectable feet and ballast. Our experience will provide guidance for future deployments, so that more detailed insights can be provided into turbidity current behaviour, and in a wider range of settings.

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“…These seafloor-hugging flows were shown to be powerful (reaching up to 20 m/s, sustaining speeds of 3-10 m/s on slopes of less than one degree; Hsu et al, 2008;Carter et al, 2014) and capable of transporting large volumes of sand, mud, organic carbon and nutrients across vast (10s-100s of km) distances (Krause et al, 1970;El Robrini et al, 1985;Piper et al, 1988;Mulder et al, 1997). More than one million km of seafloor cables now connect the world; transmitting more than 98% of all digital data communications, including the internet and financial trading (Burnett and Carter, 2017). We are increasingly reliant on this global network, and on networks of subsea pipelines that support a growing demand for energy (Yergin, 2006;Carter, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lessons learned from monitoring of turbidity currents and guidance for future platform designs

Clare¹,

Lintern²,

Rosenberger³

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Turbidity currents transport globally significant volumes of sediment and organic carbon into the deep-sea and pose a hazard to critical infrastructure. Despite advances in technology, their powerful nature often damages expensive instruments placed in their path. These challenges mean that turbidity currents have only been measured in a few locations worldwide, in relatively shallow water depths (<<2 km). Here, we share lessons from recent field deployments about how to design the platforms on which instruments are deployed. First, we show how monitoring platforms have been affected by turbidity currents including instability, displacement, tumbling and damage. Second, we relate these issues to specifics of the platform design, such as exposure of large surface area instruments within a flow and inadequate anchoring or seafloor support. Third, we provide recommended improvements to improve design by simplifying mooring configurations, minimising surface area, and enhancing seafloor stability. Finally we highlight novel multi-point moorings that avoid interaction between the instruments and the flow, and flow-resilient seafloor platforms with innovative engineering design features, such as ejectable feet and ballast. Our experience will provide guidance for future deployments, so that more detailed insights can be provided into turbidity current behaviour, and in a wider range of settings.

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“…More than 99% of all international digital data traffic is routed via >400 interconnected submarine cable systems (Fig. 1A), which underpin the Internet, enable remote working, financial transactions worth trillions of dollars per day, and connect remote island states to sustain their economic development 18,19 . These cables, which are either laid directly on the seafloor or buried and typically have a diameter equivalent to a garden hosepipe (but may increase to 4-5 cm diameter in shallow water to accommodate integral steel wire armouring for protection), are vulnerable to damage by external threats that can halt connections and/or significantly reduce bandwidth, requiring expensive and logistically-challenging repairs.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The main causes are fishing (41% of faults) and accidental anchor drops from vessels (16%). Bottom trawling is the most common type of fishing to interact with submarine cables as it occurs on most continental shelves and covers large areas of seafloor 13,[18][19][20] . In areas of such potentially-damaging human activity, cables are buried for protection by intrusive trenching, ploughing or jetting techniques 21 (Fig.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessing the impact of the global subsea telecommunications network on sedimentary organic carbon stocks

Clare

¹

,

Lichtschlag

²

,

Paradis

³

et al. 2023

Nat Commun

6

0

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The sequestration of organic carbon in seafloor sediments plays a key role in regulating global climate; however, human activities can disturb previously-sequestered carbon stocks, potentially reducing the capacity of the ocean to store CO2. Recent studies revealed profound seafloor impacts and sedimentary carbon loss due to fishing and shipping, yet most other human activities in the ocean have been overlooked. Here, we present an assessment of organic carbon disturbance related to the globally-extensive subsea telecommunications cable network. Up to 2.82–11.26 Mt of organic carbon worldwide has been disturbed as a result of cable burial, in water depths of up to 2000 m. While orders of magnitude lower than that disturbed by bottom fishing, it is a non-trivial amount that is absent from global budgets. Future offshore developments that disturb the seafloor should consider the safeguarding of carbon stocks, across the full spectrum of Blue Economy industries.

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International Submarine Cables and Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction

Cited by 7 publications

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Lessons learned from the monitoring of turbidity currents and guidance for future platform designs

Lessons learned from the monitoring of turbidity currents and guidance for future platform designs

Lessons learned from monitoring of turbidity currents and guidance for future platform designs

Assessing the impact of the global subsea telecommunications network on sedimentary organic carbon stocks

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