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Environmental Risks of Deep-sea Mining

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Handbook on Marine Environment Protection

Abstract

The mining of the deep-sea for minerals has been on the horizon for many years with interest increasing rapidly since 2010 following the application for, and approval of, many new contracts for exploration in international waters. Some contracts for exploitation have been granted in national waters with mining expected in the next few years. These activities will impact ecosystems that have not been affected by man’s influence before, and many of them are poorly understood due to their remoteness and complexity. This paper describes the likely impacts for mining the three main deep-sea minerals—manganese nodules, cobalt crusts and polymetallic sulphides and briefly looks at possible mitigation measures.

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Acknowledgements

P.P.E. Weaver and D.S.M. Billett acknowledge funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under the MIDAS project, grant agreement n° 603418.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Seascape Consultants, Romsey, UK

    Philip P. E. Weaver

  2. Deep Seas Environmental Solutions, Ashurst, Southampton, UK

    David S. M. Billett

  3. Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Cindy L. Van Dover

Authors
  1. Philip P. E. Weaver
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  2. David S. M. Billett
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  3. Cindy L. Van Dover
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Correspondence to Philip P. E. Weaver .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. German Advisory Council on the Environment, Berlin, Germany

    Markus Salomon

  2. University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Till Markus

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Weaver, P.P.E., Billett, D.S.M., Van Dover, C.L. (2018). Environmental Risks of Deep-sea Mining. In: Salomon, M., Markus, T. (eds) Handbook on Marine Environment Protection . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60156-4_11

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