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EIA protocol for deep-sea ecosystems
Deep-sea mineral resources is anticipated a big potential to produce significant wealth and
economic growth in region or nation level, while there is no practical case of commercial based
seafloor mining in deep-sea environments yet. The impacts or effects from deep-sea mining
activities can be estimated from the case studies of natural disasters such as seafloor volcanic
explosions and seismic change of seabed, or man-made disturbance for example ocean drilling
expeditions. The developments of survey method on deep-sea environments and protocol for
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) are conducted under multidisciplinary approaches. In
this presentation, we will explain the current situation on this matter in Japan.
Background
Deep-sea environments are faced with cumulative effects of many human activities, e.g.
waste deposition, oil exploitation, fishing, maritime transport, and potential seabed mining.
Recently, growing interest in deep-sea mining, within States Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ)
or in areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, has increased demand for exploration,
engineering development and scientific research. From the mid of 1990s, attentions to potential
environmental impacts caused by deep-sea mining has been paid, and many of workshops,
meetings, and conferences have been held.
In the Pacific region, the first site likely to be commercially exploited is located in Papua New
Guinea, where seafloor massive sulphide (SMS) deposits at 1600 metres water depth has been
discovered in the Bismarck Sea. The mining company, Nautilus Minerals Ltd., which has been
received permission of exploitation from the local government, is expected to begin the
production by 2018. In Japan, Japan Oil and Gas, Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) has
started the feasibility project for SMS mining from 2008 (Narita 2015). In 2015, the leader’s
declaration from the G7 summit in Germany identified the conducting of EIA and scientific
research as a priority issue for sustainable deep-sea mining. EIA for deep-sea mining is
recognized as an upcoming issue in our oceans and a key component for ensuring effective
protection of deep-sea ecosystems. Making of suitable criteria is indispensable issue to evaluate
the ecological importance or significance of deep-sea environment in baseline condition and to
estimate the robustness or resilience of ecosystem. The practical issue is a development of
cost-effective technology for observation, survey and long-term monitoring of deep-sea
environments. The development of equitable management system based on scientific knowledge
and advanced monitoring technology is yet on the way to establish.
Observation and data collection of deep-sea community
The deep-sea submersible probes, such as remotely operated vehicle (ROV), human occupied
vehicles (HOV), autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), and observatories systems by
mooring or seafloor station, are indispensable tools to collect specimens, to determine the
deep-sea community. The distribution pattern and population size of deep-sea community, and
environmental condition, is a primary data of ecosystem assessment, although the amount of
data from deep-sea environments is still dearth and limited in specific environments such as
hydrothermal vent field, methane seep area, where chemosynthesis keeps dense population size.
The data collection from deep-sea environments for EIA of commercial base is yet
under development. The advanced methods, e.g. high-resolution images acquisition,
autonomous annotation, and metagenomic approach, which are available in scientific research,
should be improved for practical use. The relational database is an indispensable tool to evaluate
base-line condition of deep-sea environment. The authorized database system, e.g. BISMaL,
WoRMS, OBIS, is useful to determine biogeographic information (Yamamoto 2012), but impact
assessment for seabed mining is needed local data on deep-sea community.
The data
accumulation, availability and transparency are crucial matter to certificate a quality of
evaluation.
Criteria for evaluation
The criteria to evaluate a current situation of marine environments including offshore
and deep-sea have been adopted, e.g. Ecologically and Biologically Significant Area (EBSA) by
CBD, Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem (VME) by FAO and Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas
(PSSAs) by IMO. The case studies to evaluate the situation of deep-sea communities using the
base-line data set and EBSA suggested its usefulness (Nakajima 2014, Yamakita 2014). The
EBSA are developed by the experts committee of CBD for a quantitative identification of
priority area for ecosystem management. The result contains useful information for scoping of
strategic environmental assessment, and for conservation planning.
The criteria of Ecosystem Services proposed in Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
are suitable to estimate socio-ecological relation and economic value of ecosystem functions.
Our understanding on ecosystem services of deep-sea remains limited. Although the functions
of nutrient regeneration, carbon storage, heat circulation, and biological refuge zone are well
known, the evaluation criteria based on ecosystem service does not establish for deep-sea
environments (Thurber 2014).
Case studies for EIA
The impact of anthropogenic disturbance by scientific drilling operations (IODP
Expedition 331) on seabed landscape and megafaunal habitation was surveyed for over 3 years
using ROV video observation in a deep-sea hydrothermal field, the Iheya North field, in the
Okinawa Trough (Nakajima 2014). We focused on observations from a particular drilling site
where the most dynamic change of habitat condition. Prior to drilling, the sediment-hosted
seafloor at the site C0014 borehole was entirely dominated by fine-grained silt sediment, and
the Calyptogena clam colonies was the most prominent benthos group. However, the intensive
drilling campaign resulted in the complete collapse of the colony of Calyptogena clams due to
drilling deposits and change of seabed temperature caused by high temperature hydrothermal
fluid from adjacent borehole. The study of long-term survey provided the scientific knowledge
of community genesis after the impact, and the practical methods of observation and ecological
assessment.
In case of huge disturbance of deep-sea environments induced by the M9.0 Tohoku
Earthquake, JAMSTEC dispatched the series of research cruise to determine the damage of
environments and the geophysical research of earthquake situation. The effect of earthquake
land sliding remained after one month, and gradually recovered the previous condition. The
results suggested the robustness of microbial and meiofaunal community of sediment, and the
mechanism of resilience after land sliding (Kawagucci 2014, Kitahashi 2014).
EIA protocol development for seabed mining
The protocols for effective protection of marine environment from harmful effects
and making a clear, effective and transparent code for sustainable deep-sea mining are being
discussed and progressed through many national and regional programmes, as well as
international workshops and experts consortium, e.g. Inter-Ridge, INDEEP, DOSI, VentBase,
MIDAS etc. They proposed the methods for survey and idea for community conservation
(Boschen 2013 & 2016, Collins 2013).
Since 2014, the Cabinet Office of Japan organized the promotion program for
research and development regarding the exploitation of submarine non-living resources, and
started the EIA protocol development project, under Project team for Development of
New-Generation Research Protocol for Submarine Resources, by Cross-Ministerial Strategic
Innovation Promotion Program (SIP). The integrated protocol consisted of the methods of
resource survey, EIA, socio-ecological assessment, and environmental monitoring and
management, is developed under multidisciplinary project, which be participated by research
institutes, universities, and private sectors.
References
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deposits, their benthic communities, impacts from mining, regulatory frameworks and
management strategies. Ocean & Coastal Management 84:54-67.
Boschen R.E. et al. 2016. A primer for use of genetic tools in selecting and testing the suitability
of set-aside sites protected from deep-sea seafloor massive sulfide mining activities. Ocean
& Coastal Management 122:37-48
Collins P. et al. 2013. A primer for the Environmental Impact Assessment of mining at seafloor
massive sulfide deposits. Marine Policy, 42:198:209.
Kawagucci S et al. 2012. Disturbance of deep-sea environments induced by the M9.0 Tohoku
Earthquake. Scientific Reports, 2 : 270, DOI: 10.1038/srep00270.
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