A review of seabed mining: current developments and environmental impacts (original) (raw)
Related papers
Deep seabed mining: a rising environmental challenge
2018
and Global Sea Mineral Resources NV, Ostend, Belgium) and Phil Weaver (Seascape Consultants Ltd National Oceanography Centre) for the time and advice provided in the course of reviewing this report. There is no question that it benefited greatly from the expertise and perspective they so generously shared. Sandor Mulsow at the ISA provided much-needed maps for this publication, for which we are grateful. We also would like to thank NOAA for making a photographic record of its many deepsea expeditions publicly available and to all the others who allowed us to use their photographs and/or illustrations: Claire Armstrong
Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
The rapidly increasing global populations and socio-economic development in the Global South have resulted in rising demand for natural resources. There are many plans for harvesting natural resources from the ocean floor, especially rare metals and minerals. However, if proper care is not taken, there is substantial potential for long-lasting and even irreversible physical and environmental impacts on the deep-sea ecosystems, including on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. This paper reviews the literature on some potentials and risks to deep seabed mining (DSM), outlining its legal aspects and environmental impacts. It presents two case studies that describe the environmental risks related to this exploitative process. They include significant disturbance of the seabed, light and noise pollution, the creation of plumes, and negative impacts on the surface, benthic, and meso- and bathypelagic zones. The study suggests some of the issues interested companies should consider in ...
Environmental impacts of deep-sea mining
2021
The urbanization, the rising of the population, the development of technology along with the elevating level of our everyday lives increase the need for mineral resources, which have multiple appliances. Until now, such deposits were found in terrestrial sites, which however, will soon expire. Therefore, the deep sea mining could be the solution to cover humanity’s needs. However, the limited knowledge on deep sea ecosystems and restricted environmental baseline information currently available are prohibiting to move towards the mining of deep-sea resources, as serious harm can be caused to the environment. As the sea has no boundaries, mining activities can have impacts in various places and users of the marine area. To date, only test mining and exploration activities have taken place worldwide, without however moving to the next phase, which is the exploitation of the available deposits. The Authority which regulates the deep-sea area (meaning the marine area beyond national juri...
Deep-Sea Mining With No Net Loss of Biodiversity—An Impossible Aim
Frontiers in Marine Science
inequity caused by mining-associated biodiversity losses, and only after all NNL measures have been used to the fullest extent, potential compensatory actions would need to be focused on measures to improve the knowledge and protection of the deep sea and to demonstrate benefits that will endure for future generations.
Marine Policy, 2018
, the International Seabed Authority has issued a total of 100 mandatory requirements (published between 2011 and 2015) as guidance for potential future miners when collecting data for their environmental baseline studies during the exploration phase. An in-depth analysis of all current requirements highlights twelve themes covered by multiple requirements: methodology for seabed sampling, methodology for water column sampling, statistical evidence, spatio-temporal considerations, toxicology, modelling needs, genetic studies, species-specificity, documentation and archival storage, impact-related studies, area-based management tools, and comparison and assessment. Within each theme, the relevant requirements are compared with each other to allow a comprehensive assessment of the research effort needed to satisfy all of the 100 requirements.
Marine Policy, 2022
A comprehensive understanding of the deep-sea environment and mining's likely impacts is necessary to assess whether and under what conditions deep-seabed mining operations comply with the International Seabed Authority's obligations to prevent 'serious harm' and ensure the 'effective protection of the marine environment from harmful effects' in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Does the International Community Have Efforts to Protect the Marine Environment from Seabed Mining
Through the United Nations, the international community is seriously paying attention to the use of seabed areas as regulated by the LOSC 1982, which states that the area and its resources are the common heritage of humankind. The 1994 Agreement has implemented chapter XI. The resources are relating to the state's interests in terms of energy exploration and environmental impact aspects. An increasing need for global electronic products by many countries in which of the components are rare minerals. Various minerals such as manganese, polymetallic nodules, and polymetallic sulfur are lying down in the seabed. However, seabeds also had an essential role in keeping the marine ecosystem balanced. On the one hand, the human's need for those minerals also cannot be denied. Draft of regulations by the International Seabed Authority to manage deep-sea mining are still insufficient to prevent irrevocable damage to the marine ecosystem and loss of essentials species for the next. On the other hand, the spirit of SDGs 14 concerns life underwater. Therefore, this paper will examine deep-sea mining scientific within a legal perspective to protect and preserve seabed for the future generation.
Biodiversity loss from deep-sea mining
Nature Geoscience
To the Editor-The emerging deep-sea mining industry is seen by some to be an engine for economic development in the maritime sector 1. The International Seabed Authority-the body that regulates mining activities on the seabed beyond national jurisdiction-must also protect the marine environment from harmful effects that arise from mining 2. The International Seabed Authority is currently drafting a regulatory framework for deep-sea mining that includes measures for environmental protection. Responsible mining increasingly strives to work with no net loss of biodiversity 3. Financial and regulatory frameworks commonly require extractive industries to use a four-tier mitigation hierarchy to prevent biodiversity loss: in order of priority, biodiversity loss is to be avoided, minimized, remediated and-as a last resort-offset 4,5. We argue here that mining with no net loss of biodiversity using this mitigation hierarchy in the deep sea is an unattainable goal. The first tier of the mitigation hierarchy is avoidance. Potentially useful mitigation strategies in the deep sea include patchwork extraction, whereby some minerals with associated fauna are left undisturbed, or other means to limit the direct mining footprint. Even so, loss of biodiversity will be unavoidable because mining directly destroys habitat and indirectly degrades large volumes of the water column and areas of the seabed due to the generation of sediment plumes that are enriched in bioavailable metals. Although biodiversity loss within mines is inevitable, innovative engineering design could reduce or minimize some risks to farfield biodiversity [Au: Ok?]. For example, shrouds fitted to cutting equipment might reduce the dispersion of sediment plumes and the footprint of plume impacts such as the burial of organisms. Similarly, vehicle design might limit compaction of seabed sediments. Of course, the efficacy of such efforts in mitigating biodiversity loss would need to be tested. Remediation addresses the residual loss of biodiversity at and around a mine site after avoidance and minimization interventions. In the deep sea, native species are often slow to recruit and recolonize disturbed habitats: slow recovery on the scale of decades to
2023
For the whole world to deliver net zero by 2050, large-scale mining is more critical for metals such as lithium, cobalt, platinum, palladium, REE, gallium, tungsten, tellurium, and indium as these metals are essential for green technology applications such as making wind turbines, solar panels, fuel-cells, electric vehicles, and data storage systems required to transition to a low-carbon economy. Since land-based mineral deposits are depleting fast, seabed resources are seen as a new resource frontier for mineral exploration and extraction. They include mainly deep-ocean mineral deposits, such as massive sulfides, manganese nodules, ferromanganese crusts, phosphorites, and REE-rich marine muds. Manganese nodules contain mainly manganese and iron, but also valuable metals like nickel, cobalt, and copper, as well as REE and platinum, which are used in making several high-technology and green technology products. For example, deep-sea mud enriched in REE (> 2000 µg/g) was found in the western North Pacific Ocean. High concentrations of REE range from 1,727 to 2,511 μg/g in the crust samples collected from the Afanasy Nikitin Seamount (ANS) in the Indian Ocean. However, these deposits usually have lower REE grades than land-based REE deposits such as carbonatite-hosted deposits but form greater potential volumes. Though the mining companies and their sponsoring countries are in the process of developing the required technologies to mine the three deep-sea environments: abyssal plains, seamounts, and hydrothermal vents, due to severe concerns about the possible environmental damages, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) has not granted any mining permissions so far, although deep-sea mining becomes inevitable in the future green energy revolution.
Challenges to the sustainability of deep-seabed mining
Nature Sustainability
he deep-sea floor (below 200 m) is presently, along with Antarctica, the only area on Earth where mineral resources are not currently extracted commercially 1. However, the twenty-first century has seen rising concerns over the depletion of the most readily available and highest-grade ores of selected minerals on land, as well as increasing vulnerabilities to political control over resource access 2-4. Demand for some minerals is also projected to increase, particularly from electrification of the transport sector and renewable energy generation 5-8. A recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report indicates that 70-85% of all electricity would need to come from renewable sources by 2050 to limit global warming to 1.5 °C 9. These factors, combined with the development of a governance structure for international mineral resources established under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and its 1994 Implementing Agreement, have led to renewed interest in deep-seabed mining 4,10. Many metals occur together at economically interesting concentrations in the deep ocean. These include copper, cobalt, nickel, zinc, silver and gold, as well as lithium and rare-earth elements (Table 1). The metals are found in different ore types in different settings (Fig.