Summary of 'Environmental Impact Research on Marine Ecosystem for Deep-sea Mining' Conducted by Metal Mining Agency of Japan

摘要

The Environmental Impact Research on Marine Ecosystem for Deep-sea Mining has been conducted from 1998 to 2002 for establishing quantitative methods to estimate environmental impacts on marine ecosystem on deep seabed likely to be caused by mining operations for mineral resources. This research program was composed of the baseline study, the artificial impact experiment by a scraper simulating the mining operation, the three-year monitoring after the impact, and the development of numerical simulation model. The results obtained through this program are very important not only for establishing the methods but also for gathering fundamental information about the environmental baseline of cobalt-rich manganese crust distribution area.