standardization of environmental data and information - International ...

Dr. Smith reviewed in detail the proposals of the Sanya Workshop,
which recommend precisely what types of data contractors should be asked
to compile in their environmental baseline studies, and what collecting,
sampling and processing methods they should use. He added his own
supplementary suggestions for each of the areas to be monitored: physical
and chemical oceanography, sediment properties and sedimentation,
biological communities and bioturbation. He also offered ideas about the
organization of an environmental database that would assemble existing
and new information from contractors and make it available for retrieval.
Going beyond the initial baseline studies, he offered five suggestions on
how contractors should monitor the impact of mining tests, once they reach
that stage of exploration.
In his oral presentation, Dr. Smith elaborated on six general
characteristics of deep-sea ecosystems, with special reference to the
Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCFZ) in the Pacific Ocean, where most
registered exploration areas are located.
(1) Low flux of particulate organic carbon (POC), a basic measure of life
activity, results in low levels of productivity, phytoplankton crops and
biological rates.
(2) Low physical energy leads to diminished currents and extremely
stable sediments that rarely move about.
(3) High species diversity implies that many animals have restricted
geographical ranges and are thus more susceptible to extinction if a
significant part of their habitat is disturbed.
(4) Though the habitat is large and continuous, it also displays significant
geographical variations in such factors as animal abundance, which in
the CCFZ diminishes from north to south and from west to east.
(5) Temporal variations are seen on many time scales – seasonal,
interannual and multidecadal – as demonstrated by the El Niño
current and weather cycle.
(6) There are large gaps in human understanding of deep-sea
phenomena.
He identified three ways in which the mining impacts discussed in
his paper might harm marine life, particularly suspension feeders that
depend on organic particles descending from surface waters and surfacedeposit
feeders that obtain their food from the seafloor. (1) Sediment
raised from the bottom, mixing with the nutrient-rich particles from surface
waters, would dilute the overall quality of the food resource. (2) Surface-
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