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Assessment of Deep-Sea Faunal Communities-Indicators of Environmental Impact

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Environmental Issues of Deep-Sea Mining

Abstract

Our assessment of deep-sea faunal communities is based on the results of a comprehensive UNESCO/IOC baseline study of the megafaunal assemblages of the metallic nodule ecosystem of five areas within the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ) of the eastern Pacific Ocean. This study serves as benchmark to interpret the structure of megafaunal populations associated with benthic biotopes in areas targeted for mining. It identifies on a large scale the variability of nodule and sediment facies and their associations with specific megafaunal communities. An appropriate set of management tools and options have been developed, in particular indicators of sensitivity to environmental changes anthropogenically or naturally induced. The general characteristics of the nodule ecosystem in the CCZ and its sensitivity to deep-sea mining are discussed from the surface to the seabed in relation to recent research on the description of water masses and dynamics and an assessment of their vulnerability. A tridimensional multiparametric rapid environmental assessment (REA) has been applied on one pilot site of the French contract area using GIS zoning, ecohydrodynamics, and sensitivity indexes.

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Acknowledgments

The research presented in this paper would not have been possible without the support of the “Institut Français de Recherche pour l’Exploitation de la Mer” (IFREMER), which made available its facilities, cruises, data, and expertise, through teams from the departments of Deep Ocean Ecosystems and Marine Geosciences, with the funding from the European Commission, DG Enterprise and Industry, the “Institut Océanographique de Paris” (France) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), US Department of Commerce (USA). Later support was provided by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO) and the Government of Flanders to update and expand the work with BIE site. Cruises and data were also been made available by SCRIPPS (Dr. George Wilson) for the ECHO I site and for Quagmire cruise, by NOAA for BIE site (Dr. Craig Smith and D. Trueblood), by the University of Hamburg, (Prof H. Thiel) for the DISCOL cruise in the Peru Basin, South Pacific. Data for the water mass analysis was available thanks to the Malaspina expedition (grant number CSD2008-00077). The author thanks the department of PATRINAT of the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN), Paris (France) and the “Instituto Español de Oceanografía,” Malaga (Spain), for their support.

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  1. Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Patrimoine Naturel (PATRINAT), Paris, France

    Virginie Tilot

  2. Instituto Español de Oceanografía, Malaga, Spain

    Virginie Tilot

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  1. CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography, Dona Paula, Goa, India

    Rahul Sharma

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Tilot, V. (2019). Assessment of Deep-Sea Faunal Communities-Indicators of Environmental Impact. In: Sharma, R. (eds) Environmental Issues of Deep-Sea Mining. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12696-4_6

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