SEABED AUTHORITY WORKSHOP SUGGESTS WAYS TO STANDARDIZE DATA ON ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF DEEP-SEA MINERAL EXPLORATION

SEABED AUTHORITY WORKSHOP SUGGESTS WAYS TO STANDARDIZE DATA

ON ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF DEEP-SEA MINERAL EXPLORATION

(Received from the International Seabed Authority.)

KINGSTON, 2 July -- A group of scientists, engineers and seabed contractors, convened by the International Seabed Authority at its headquarters in Kingston, has just compiled a set of suggestions for improving data collection in the deep ocean.  They are aimed at ascertaining that future seabed exploration -- and eventually mining -- will cause the least possible harm to the marine environment.

The Workshop to Standardize the Environmental Data and Information required by the Mining Code and the Guidelines for Contractors met at the Authority's headquarters in Kingston from 25 to 29 June.  It proposed specific ways in which contractors holding seabed exploration contracts with the Authority should gather and report precise information on the current state of the deep seabed, to be compiled by the Authority in a widely accessible database.

This information will come from environmental baseline data that have been or will be gathered by contractors, as well as from monitoring programmes that seabed enterprises are required to conduct under the terms of their recently signed contracts.  Those terms are governed by regulations -- also known as the Mining Code -- which the Authority adopted last July for exploration for polymetallic nodules in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

The regulations set out broad protections for the marine environment to be applied when the enterprises holding these contracts explore for nodules in the deep seabed.  More specific recommendations, especially in the area of data gathering, are being worked out by the Authority's Legal and Technical Commission.  The weeklong Workshop was convened to give guidance to the Commission on these recommendations, which are in the form of guidelines rather than legal requirements, giving the contractors flexibility in applying them.

Presentations to the Workshop highlighted the fact that the environmental effects of seabed exploration are hard to predict, given the lack of experience in this area and the relative paucity of information about the deep ocean.  Thus, the panel concentrated on identifying key types of data needed to assess the state of the marine environment in the area, as a prerequisite to knowing how future mineral resource development might alter that environment.

This category of information is known as baseline data -- the "before" in a "before-and-after" sequence anticipating future exploitation.  It includes

everything from measuring the amounts of indicator chemicals in the deep ocean, such as carbon from living organisms and heavy metals dissolved in the water, to identifying the species of undersea animals and their habitat ranges.  The Workshop's contribution was to specify what should be collected and measured -- and even, in many cases, what methods and procedures should be employed to ensure that data gathered by one contractor can be compared with those derived from others.

The Workshop elected to concentrate more on baseline studies than on impact assessment, which involves measurement of the environmental consequences of lifting nodules from the sea floor.  Participants took account of the fact that actual mining is not likely to occur for at least a decade, so that time will be available to develop guidelines for such assessment.  Several members of the Workshop, however, observed that mining would inevitably cause serious harm to that part of the seabed from which nodules would be scraped or sucked up, though the area directly affected represented only a tiny share of the vast ocean bottom.

With both biologists and engineers represented, including experts from most of the seabed contractors, the Workshop sought to balance the desire of scientists to obtain all the information they can about the deep ocean, with the need of contractors to limit costs.  Of all the research that might be done in the oceans, members sought to identify what is of crucial concern for environmental assessment.  While concentrating on guidance to contractors on monitoring requirements, the group also made several suggestions for international coordination of scientific research.

Considerable discussion took place about the amount of standardization the Workshop should recommend.  In the end, it decided to cite a number of existing data-collection procedures and standards published in the scientific literature, while leaving it up to contractors to apply their own standards in some cases.  As an example, it recommended a series of mesh sizes for trapping and inspecting animals with different body sizes, but could not agree on a standard speed for lowering collecting devices onto the sea floor.

The Workshop suggested that the Authority facilitate cooperation on research cruises in contract areas.  The idea would be to compile and disseminate information on planned cruises in order to encourage the exchange of sea-going scientists, help researchers to exchange samples and technologies, and allow wider sampling in time and over several seabed license areas.

The Authority was also invited to convene workshops on analytical, sampling and data-comparison methods, and to facilitate the compilation of an overall database that would describe the content and location of data stores maintained by contractors and others, making the information available through the World Wide Web.  Where the Workshop could not agree on standard procedures for measuring certain properties, it proposed that the scientific community coordinate work to assess or develop methodologies.

One recommendation calls for the convening of workshops on the spatial and temporal variability of data.  Several presenters of papers observed that the impact of mining cannot be assessed until natural changes in the environment from place to place, season to season, and year to year are understood.

Though it discussed the possible centralization of some functions, the Workshop agreed on only a few areas where this approach might be desirable.  One is the specialized area of taxonomy (species classification and identification), often the domain of a few specialists, but vital to knowing whether a species ranges over a small area, rendering it more vulnerable to extinction, or has a broad geographic range.  It was recommended that specialists be designated for each animal group to coordinate identification, and that collectors be encouraged to collaborate with one another.

Several participants held out the hope that advances in genetic biology would greatly speed the task of identification, traditionally based on morphology (the physical characteristics of an animal's body).  In this regard, the Workshop recommended that specimens be preserved in high-grade alcohol used for genetic testing.

A common view was expressed that much more work has to be done on standardization of environmental data.  In this regard, a participant from the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, India, invited the Authority to convene further workshops on the topic at that institute.

The Chairman of the Workshop was Craig R. Smith, Professor in the Department of Oceanography, University of Hawaii, Honolulu.

Satya N. Nandan, the Authority's Secretary-General, thanking the participants for their contributions, observed that extensive monitoring and research had been going on in the oceans independently, much of it similar, though to a common purpose.  It was important for investors and scientists to meet so that they could check out what the others were doing.

The Workshop, he continued, had revealed considerable common ground on how to approach data collection and research.  He hoped its report would serve as a useful reference document for those using different methods.

He noted that there were two aspects to the subjects considered by the Workshop:  the need for better scientific knowledge of the oceans and the obligations of seabed contractors.  There was a need to distinguish which aspects related to the activities of contractors, so as not to place unnecessary burdens on commercial entities which would be more focused on making money.  At the same time, the Authority had a responsibility to promote marine scientific research and had to consider the best ways of doing this.  In this regard, it planned next year a workshop on prospects for international cooperation on deep-ocean research.

Details of Recommendations

The panel's recommendations emerged from three working groups that met at the end of the week.  They dealt, respectively, with benthic biology, concerned with animals (there are no chlorophyll-dependent plants in this pitch-dark realm) living on or under the seabed, some on the nodules themselves; with the water column above the seabed, all the way to the ocean surface, and with chemical and geological factors.  In each case, the Workshop looked at the recommendations for the guidance of contractors prepared by the Legal and Technical Commission and singled out key elements requiring measurement, along with standards for sampling and processing specimens and data.

Regarding benthic biology, a number of specific protocols for the collection and processing of specimens will be cited in the Workshop's final report, after further communication among its members.  Following traditional investigative techniques, recommendations were made for handling animals differently according to their size:  the largest ones by photographic surveys and the smallest by lowering box corers and multiple corers (collecting devices) onto the seabed, with the resulting specimens to be collected and counted by passing the sediment sections through sieves of varying hole sizes.

The Workshop identified five critical questions on which it believed the Authority should facilitate research on benthic biology:  the geographical ranges of species, their response to an event that disturbed the sea floor, at what point the repetition of such an event might produce chronic effects, how quickly animal communities might recover, and how those communities varied over space and time.  Such facilitation, using new resources, might include bringing scientists and funding agencies together, and convening workshops to formulate coordinated research plans.

On the water column, the Workshop distinguished between key information to be routinely sampled and other useful measurements.  In the first category are such characteristics as electrical conductivity, salinity, temperature, light level, dissolved oxygen and nutrients.  Lower priority (from the standpoint of seabed requirements) was assigned to such matters as observation of marine mammals, sea turtles and sea birds, to be done according to bridge watches defined by the International Whaling Commission.

On ocean chemistry and geology, as key elements for monitoring the Workshop identified specific characteristics of sediments and the pore waters contained in them, as well as particular chemicals and other properties of the water column above the seabed up to the ocean surface.  It specified how each characteristic should be sampled and, in many cases, what methodologies should be used for analysis.

In cases where scientists have not settled on a common standard for analysis, the group simply suggested that the best available method be used.  This is true, for example, of organic carbon -- an important measure of biological activity -- and sediment grain-size.  Lead-210, a radioactive form of the element, was cited for measuring bioturbation depth, or how far down into the seabed worms and other animals turn over the sediment as they tunnel through it.  Specific chemical tests are cited for heavy metals in both pore waters and the water column, which might be released when nodules are gathered and tumbled about on their way to the surface.  Trace metal concentration in animal bodies, sometimes the cause of poisoning for humans eating their flesh, was also highlighted as a factor requiring monitoring.

The Workshop heard oral presentations by 19 participants, and held a discussion after each.  These presentations, along with papers, will be included in the proceedings of the Workshop, to be published next year.

Note:  A fuller account of the Workshop's proceedings, with summaries of individual presentations, may be found on the International Seabed Authority's  Web site, www.isa.jm.org.