Practice of marine environmental impact assessment and monitoring using ISO standards

Abstract

Practical issue of marine environmental impact assessment (MEIA) for resource exploitation is the development of a cost-effective operation plan by best practice methods conducting international standards. The Ocean program in the Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP) has enhanced to advance the techniques on MEIA for exploitation of seabed mineral resources in deep-sea. Stand-alone seafloor observatory Edokko Mark 1, technical protocols on environmental survey, and onboard monitoring methods were tested in the research cruises. The nine of techniques developed have been published in an online archive of information on oceanographic research and observations. The four technical protocols were submitted to the committee of International Standard Organization (ISO). The survey cruises of deep-sea off Minami-Torishima collected environmental baseline data using these techniques. In 2022, we examined the monitoring performance of these techniques on the cruise for operational testing of the mining machine at a trial site off Ibaraki. In this cruise the results of an operational test demonstrated that these techniques have good performance as an onboard monitoring method for seabed mining. We will induce another advanced technique, e.g. in situ measurement tools, eDNA and onboard metagenomics, AI data processing and digital modelling, to improve the protocols on MEIA and risk monitoring.