standardization of environmental data and information - International ...

Chapter 18
General Sampling Design for Baseline
Studies
Dr. Ron J. Etter, Professor, Biology Department, University of
Massachusetts, Boston, United States of America
How should we sample to establish a baseline for the potential
environmental impact of polymetallic nodule mining in the deep sea? The
sampling programme will depend critically on exactly what information is
required. One may simply want to know what organisms exist within these
environments and what their natural spatial and temporal patterns of variation
are. On the other hand, the goal may be to detect how mining operations
change deep-sea communities.
I shall describe a sampling programme that will accomplish both goals,
although it is designed primarily to test statistically for a change in the ambient
abyssal communities due to mining. I shall then discuss several other
sampling strategies that will quantify the spatial and temporal patterns of
variation in deep-sea communities, providing a baseline, but will not allow one
to test for mining impacts.
The sampling programmes I describe are very general. More efficient
sampling programmes could be designed if we had basic information on the
nature and scale of mining, the type and magnitude of environmental changes
due to mining operations, the spatial and temporal variability of the organisms
that inhabit nodule provinces and, most importantly, how organisms might
respond to mining operations.
I shall describe a sampling programme to detect changes in benthic
macrofaunal communities, although with slight modifications similar strategies
could be used for other faunal components. I shall begin by noting some
specific challenges for developing a baseline-monitoring programme; then
describe various sampling strategies that have been used for detecting
environmental impacts from anthropogenic activities, noting their deficiencies,
and conclude by proposing an appropriate strategy that is statistically rigorous.
427 INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY