Habitat Mapping for Ecosystem-Based Management of Deep-Sea Mining

Spatial considerations are important at multiple stages in the development of a deep-sea mining (DSM) project, from resource definition, to identification of preservation and management zones within a contract area, to planning of suitable ecological strata for baseline studies and impact assessment, to mine planning and adaptive management. Large investments are made to collect remote sensing data early in exploration to support geological resource studies, but environmental considerations are often instigated at later stages of exploration and can become disconnected from spatial frameworks. We outline a process of harmonizing the environmental and geological aspects of DSM project development by incorporating a habitat approach early in the development cycle. This habitat approach supports ecosystem-based management, which is a central requirement of environmental assessments. Geostatistical techniques are described that are used alongside a hierarchical classification scheme to describe and map geoforms and substrates. This foundational habitat model can form the basis of spatially explicit ecosystem models and can inform sampling design and spatial planning at critical junctures of a project development, ensuring that sampling campaigns are connected by an ecosystem logic early in the cycle. We provide an example application from the NORI-D polymetallic nodule exploration contract area in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.