standardization of environmental data and information - International ...

Chapter 23
Recommendations of the
Chemical/Geological Working Group on
Key Environmental Parameters
Leader
Participants
Gerald Matisoff
Baidy Diene, Sang-Mook Lee, Jean-Pierre
Lenoble, Bhaskar Rao, Rahul Sharma, Michael
Wiedicke-Hombach, Boris Winterhalter,
Huaiyang Zhou
The Chemical/Geological Working Group based its deliberations on
the recommendations and commentary which the Legal and Technical
Commission (LTC) of the International Seabed Authority had prepared to
guide deep-seabed contractors when they assess the environmental
impacts arising from exploration for polymetallic nodules in the Area beyond
national jurisdiction 1 . Key parameters and methodologies for three
environments (sediment properties, sediment pore water and water-column
chemistry) are identified below.
Parameters recommended for measurement were identified based
on their importance for one or more of three criteria: geotechnical, habitat
and impact assessment. Geotechnical criteria are those that are important
for predicting the nature of the sediment plume and for assessing the
physical nature of the seabed. In addition, some geotechnical criteria are
important for understanding the benthic habitat. Habitat criteria are those
that are directly related to the benthic habitat, such as sediment grain size,
as well as those that indirectly affect the life support of the organisms, such
as nutrients. Impact assessment is used for those criteria that present a
toxicological concern, either to the organisms themselves, or to human
health by bioaccumulation up the food chain. Heavy metals are examples
of this category.
For a baseline study, the number of samples to be collected should
be dependent on the size of the area and the local variability of the
sediment and topographic characteristics. This number should provide a
representative data set for the mining area.
INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY 513