standardization of environmental data and information - International ...

central North Pacific Ocean, the average sea surface temperature is 25
degrees Celsius. The North Equatorial Current dominates surface-water
movement in the zone. This is a broad current flowing east to west,
extending between 9? and 20? north latitude, and has an average speed of
about 10 cm/sec.
Thanks to major progress in recent years in the development of
satellite-based remote sensing, acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs)
and other technologies, as well as the implementation of large
oceanographic programmes such as the World Ocean Circulation
Experiment (WOCE), significant advances are being made in the general
understanding of the world’s climate, oceanic circulation and seawater
chemistry. These advances will provide a relatively well-developed regional
background for contractors to use in their environmental assessment
efforts.
Development of environmental standards in these general areas
should focus on the opportunistic 11 collection of appropriate data during
exploration cruises that can contribute to a long-term baseline record.
Standards should assist explorers in the uniform acquisition of data to
provide ground truth for oceanographic classifications based on remote
sensing and hopefully to expand the inferences that can be confidently
made using remote-sensing data.
3.6. Pelagic communities
Within the existing contractor exploration claims, the natural
environment includes large expanses of oligotrophic tropical and
subtropical ocean. Section 5.6 below describes the general types of
bacteria, phytoplankton, zooplankton, micronekton, commercial fishes and
marine mammals that have been studied in the CCFZ. These wide-ranging
and diverse populations can make characterisation of ecological
relationships very difficult.
Furthermore, extensive characterisation of epipelagic (near-surface)
communities may not be necessary for adequate impact assessment if no
substantial surface or near-surface discharge of mining wastes is
contemplated by the contractors. Absent such a discharge, a deep-seabed
mining system could cause only relatively small impacts on surface
communities, chiefly through the presence of the floating system itself.
However, selection of a subsurface discharge would lead to unknown
impacts on midwater and/or abyssal pelagic communities, and the methods
INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY 108