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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 Boschen R.E. et al. 2013. Mining of deep-sea seafloor massive sulfides: A review of the 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. Kitahashi T et al. 2014. Effect of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake on deep-sea meiofaunal assemblages inhabiting the landward slope of the Japan Trench. Marine Geology, 358: 128–137 Nakajima R et al. 2014. A new method for estimating the area of the seafloor from oblique images taken by deep-sea submersible survey platforms. JAMSTEC Rep. Res. Dev., 19: 59–66, doi: 10.5918/jamstecr.19.59. Nakajima R. et al., 2014. Species richness and community structure of benthic macrofauna and megafauna in the deep-sea chemosynthetic ecosystems around the Japanese archipelago: an attempt to identify priority areas for conservation. Diversity and Distributions, 1–13 Narita T et al. 2015. Summary of Environmental Impact Assessment for Mining Seafloor Massive Sulfides in Japan. Journal of Shipping and Ocean Engineering, 5:103-114. D 10.17265/2159-5879/2015.03.001 Thurber A. R. et al. 2014. Ecosystem function and services provided by the deep sea Biogeosciences, 11, 3941–3963 Yamakita T. et al., 2015. Identification of important marine areas around the Japanese Archipelago: Establishment of a protocol for evaluating a broad area using ecologically and biologically significant areas selection criteria. Marine Policy 51, 136–147. Yamamoto H. et al., 2012. BISMaL: Biological Information System for Marine Life and Role for Biodiversity Research. In The Biodiversity Observation Network in the Asia-Pacific Region: Toward Further Development of Monitoring, Ecological Research Monographs, p 247-256. .