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Ocean Resources: Volume I: Assessment and Utilisation PDF

324 Pages·1990·11.523 MB·English
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OCEAN RESOURCES OCEAN RESOURCES VOLUME I ASSESSMENT AND UTILISATION Derived from papers presented at the First International Ocean Technology Congress on EEZ Resources: Technology Assessment held in Honolulu, Hawaii, 22-26 January 1989 edited by DENNIS A. ARDUS British Geological Survey, Edinburgh, UK. and MICHAEL A. CHAMP National Science Foundation, Washington DC, US.A. KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LONDON Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data In:ernaTlonal Ocean Technology Congress on EEZ Resources, Technology Assessment (1st 1989 Honolulu. Hawali) Ocean rEsources / edited by Dennls A. Ardus and Michael A. Champ. p. cm. "Derlved frcm papers at the First International Ocean Technology Congress on EEZ Resources, Techno logy Assessment, Hono lu lu, Hawa ii, 1989 ... Includes lndex. Contents- v. 1. Assessment and 'ltllisation -- v. 2. Subsea work systems and technologles. ISH N -11 :97R-94-0 I 0-7459-9 1. MarlnE resources--Ccngresses. 2. Ocean englneerlng- -Congresses. I. Ardus, D. A. II. Champ, Mlchael A. III. Title. OC1001.I58 1990 333.91 'S4--dc20 90-5203 ISBN-I3:978-94-010-7459-9 e-ISBN -13:978-94-009-2131-3 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-2131-3 Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. Kluwer Academic Publishers incorporates the publishing programmes of D. Reidel, Martinus Nijhoff, Dr W. Junk and MTP Press. Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by Kluwer Academic Publishers, 101 Philip Drive, Norwell, MA 02061, U.S.A. In all other countries, sold and distributed by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, P.O. Box 322,3300 AH Dordrecht, The Netherlands. Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved © 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1990 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner. DEDICATION Dr. Kenji Okamura On behalf of the participants and many friends who attended the first International Ocean Technology Congress (IOTC), we would like to honour posthumously Dr. Kenji Okamura, who was a Special Assistant to the Minister for Science and Technology, a longtime Executive with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., and a Founding Director of the Japan Marine Science and Technology Centre. Dr. Kenji Okamura was internationally known and highly respected for his distinguished career and many contributions to the advancement of ocean science and technology for the development and utilization of the oceans and their resources. Among his many accomplishments was his distinguished service and valuable contributions as participant and advisor to several Marine Technology Panels of the U.S.-Japan Cooperative Program in Natural Resources (UJNR). Dr. Okamura died on January 15th, 1989, one week before the IOTC in HonolulU, Hawaii. He prepared several papers for this conference which were presented by others and incorporated into the conference record. In his honour, we would like to dedicate this International Ocean Technology Congress and the resultant conference papers to the memory of Dr. Kenji Okamura. Dr. Okamura will be remembered for his pursuit of the development of the oceans for the benefit of mankind. The International Ocean Technology Congress PREFACE Today western nations consume annually only a small percentage of their resources from the sea, despite the proclamation of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) by many. In contrast, most Pacific Basin Countries obtain more than a quarter of their annual needs from the ocean. Determination of greater rewards from the development of marine resources is markedly inhibited by the limited technical abilities available to locate and assess them. Knowledge of Exclusive Economic Zone resources is schematic and generalised, and a detailed understanding of the geology and processes relating to the economic use of the seafloor is both fragmentary and very basic. Technology for mapping the mineral resources of continental shelves and ocean areas, except in active offshore hydrocarbon provinces, has been largely developed in pursuit of scientific objectives and competence to rapidly appraise economic potential is limited. Similarly, the capability to characterise and evaluate the other resources of the seas is rudimentary. The development of ocean resources will become increasingly urgent as the growth of the world population and the depletion of land reserves combine to enhance demand. Also, increasing environmental constraints will limit the availability of traditional land-based resources; nevertheless, new offshore development must proceed in a manner whereby the marine environment is not plundered but protected and conserved. The challenge to develop ocean resources with responsible environmental stewardship will require greater leadership than the development of the technologies of exploitation. The papers in this volume have been derived from those presented at the International Ocean Technology Congress on EEZ resources - Technology Assessment held in Hawaii in 1989. They demonstrate a breadth of developing awareness and capabilities, concepts and constraints. These suggest that exploitation of the many and varied opportunities will make the oceans a major activity area given the necessary statutory and regulatory framework needed for orderly, responsible and economic development. However, a database of information is necessary, not only to provide awareness of resources, but as a baseline to allow a balanced view of environmental factors and economic benefits to be considered when licencing and management strategies are developed by nations. Extensive mining of marine hard mineral resources is presently restricted to aggregates and placer minerals; while recovery of phosphates, polymetallic sulphides and cobalt, manganese and nickel enriched crusts and nodules remains academic in economic terms. Alongside exploration and evaluation there is a parallel requirement for geotechnical data and awareness of potential geohazards in order that investigations, extraction procedures or the installation of structures can proceed with the minimum of risk. In the context of world demographics and rising expectations, energy demand is anticipated to grow by a factor of ten over the next century even assuming extensive conservation and limited population growth. These constraints are not evident at present and renewable energy presents diverse opportunities dependant on geographic location, viii PREFACE geological setting and oceanographic regime. Considerable promise is given by wave power, tidal power and by Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). The benefits of employing deep ocean water as a nutrient medium is seen to complement OTEC systems. Improved efficiencies are enhanced by the integration of energy production with various mariculture and agriculture operations. Deep ocean water stimulates high productivity, as in areas of natural upwelling, with its biological purity, freedom from pathogens and competitor organisms, and richness in nutrients which allow production of marine protein in a manner more reminiscent of a controlled manufacturing process than farming. The utilisation of ocean space also provides a resource simply by direct land extension through reclamation or by the establishment of sea-borne communities nearshore to alleviate the pressures evident in many coastal metropoli. Alternatively, and more futuristically, theoretically self-sufficient communities, offshore airports and recreational facilities (hotels, theme parks, etc.) could be established in oceanic waters. Additionally, the oceans role as an assimilator of selected waste materials, in the face of increasing environmental difficulties onshore, needs to be appraised with a full awareness of the physical, chemical and biological processes in the marine environment, with their temporal and spatial scales, and subsequent cause and effect relationships in marine pollution. Coastal waters in many areas are showing acute sensitivity to the level of contaminents and integrated monitoring of onshore drainage basins, the adjacent coastal zones and the seas beyond is required. It is possible that the discharge of these wastes into more open, deeper oceanic waters would provide greater dilution and subsequently render contaminants discharged to background levels without deleterious effects. When we consider space, within our solar system only the earth has an atmosphere and ocean to support life. Therefore, the exploration, protection and development of ocean space and it's resources must be given a major priority by mankind. Dennis A. Ardus and Michael A. Champ FOREWORD Five billion men, women and children live on planet Earth and the number is increasing rapidly as we strive, with varying degrees of success, to conquer starvation, disease and war; before the middle of the next century the number could be ten billion. Indeed, most of the people who have lived since the beginning of civilisation are alive today. Some of us live very well but most are poor and many are in poverty while some are starving. We all strive for better standards. To support our lifestyle we need food, minerals and energy nearly all of which we get from a small proportion of the land mass much of which is overworked, overexploited, overfarmed and overpopulated. Mineral recovery despoils the landscape; energy from fossil fuel despoils the atmosphere and threatens global climate, while nuclear power at least for the present has become suspect; food production by intensive arable and livestock farming is beginning to reveal its downside with mounting problems ahead. We release wastes into the atmosphere and the sea and this has to stop. We must take greater care in mining, be less profligate in the burning of fossil fuels which is disturbing the equilibrium of the atmosphere which, in turn, protects us from extremes of heat and cold, and we must heed the warnings of too intensively farming the land, but that is not all. We need to find other sources of these essential resources; and we need more space. Increasingly we are becoming aware of the scale and importance to us of the oceans, how little we know about them, how they circulate and affect our climate, what they contain in the water column and what they cover on and below the sea bed, and how they can contribute to our insatiable drive to improve our Ii ving standards while the world's population grows. The papers in this volume are concerned with these resources in the Exclusive Economic Zone, that part of the ocean lying within 200 miles of land. This covers about a third of the surface of the Earth and has an area as large as the total land mass itself including the arid deserts and the frozen wastes; yet half of it is over a mile deep and out of our reach today for all but limited exploration. Who knows what knowledge and riches this exploration will reveal. These papers review first the legal regime, of vital importance for more than territorial reasons since all nations share a common responsibility to protect the oceans from indiscriminate dumping and overexploitation. The old habits of the developed nations will have to change and it will not be easy; but change them we must if we are to convince those less fortunate than we are that these practices must be controlled. Successive chapters assess our geological knowledge and the gaps to be filled to give us a better understanding of the geological processes; the minerals available for extraction; the ocean renewable energy; the living resources; and the utilisation of the ocean space and the opportunities this will present. The final chapters review the environmental assessment which links back to the legal regime. Together they represent the state of present knowledge and proj ect the opportunities ahead for us. There is much to be learned and even more to be done. The subject is as vast as the oceans themselves, ix x FOREWORD involving virtually all the sciences and most of the technologies. The outcome will have a profound effect on Ii ving standards in the future and will ultimately determine just how many peopl e this planet of ours can support. It affects, and therefore concerns, everyone. It promises also to be an exciting venture of exploration, discovery, and implementation of the knowledge acquired to the benefit of all of us. We can spoil our ocean regime if we disregard the consequences of our actions. We can turn it into a sterile, poisoned lake unable to support marine life and harmful to all who come into close contact with it. By misuse we can modify its interaction with the air to control our climate with grave consequences. While the papers in this volume may be dominated by authors from the USA and UK, they are a truly international set and this is important because these issues cannot be faced in isolation. The Congress at which they were presented had three main purposes. First, to provide an international forum for countries to inform each other of planned ocean acti vi ti es and pol i ci es; secona, to create a supportive environment in which ocean projects requiring multi-nation co-operation and/or funding can be proposed; and lastly, to advocate the development of ocean resources in an environmentally-acceptable manner. These papers show that these objectives have been partly met and a step forward in understanding has been made. But a long road lies ahead and we must rise to the challenge and keep moving forward. To do this we must keep our imaginations intact and think the unthinkable for the future will be different in many ways from that which we can possibly predict today. A. Gordon Senior Gordon Senior Associates Normandy Surrey U.K. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The need for the International Ocean Technology Congress (IOTC) was recognised at a National Science Foundation and University of Hawaii sponsored conference in 1986 concerned with 'Engineering solutions for the Utilization of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) Resources'. This resulted in the establishment of a small international group of scientists and engineers with a common interest in the development and conservation of ocean space and resources which met at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh in 1987. Subsequently, the group has held planning meetings at the Energy and Mineral Research Organization in Taiwan and at the University of Hawaii in 1988. The Congress, from which these papers were derived, was held in January 1989 in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was sponsored by: National Science Foundation Commission of European Communities Institut Francais de Recherche pour 1 'Exploitation de la Mer Industrial Technology Research Institute, Taiwan University of Hawaii Heriot-Watt University Society for Underwater Technology Marine Technology Society Members of IOTC who have served as members of the IOTC editorial board for this volume include: Dennis A. Ardus British Geological Survey, U.K. Norman Caplan National Science Foundation, U.S.A. Michael A. Champ Environmental Systems Development Inc., U.S.A. Chen-Tung A. Chen National Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan John P. Craven Law of the Sea Institute, University of Hawaii, U.S.A. Robin M. Dunbar Heriot-Watt University, U.K. Michel Gauthier Institut Francais de Recherche pour 1 'Exploitation de la Mer, France Jorgen Lexander Swedish Defence Research Establishment, Sweden C.Y. Li Advisor on Science & Technology, The Executive Yuan, Taiwan Kenji Okamura Ministry of State, Science & Technology Agency, Japan Boris Winterhalter Geological Survey of Finland Paul C. Yuen University of Hawaii, U.S.A. The considerable contribution of Fay Horie and Carrie Matsuzaki of the University of Hawaii in the organization of the first IOTC and in the preparation of this volume is gratefully acknowledged. Pamela Pendreigh and Fiona Samson of Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh are thanked for their preparation of the text for this Volume. TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION v PREFACE vii FOREWORD by A. Gordon Senior ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii PART I LEGAL REGIME CHAPTER 1 The Impact of the Law of the Sea on Ocean 3 Resource Development and Ocean Resource Technology John P. Craven PART II GEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT CHAPTER 2 The US EEZ Program: Information and Technology 13 Needs Millington Lockwood and Gary W. Hill CHAPTER 3 The Potential Resources of the Sea Areas around 21 the Remaining Dependencies of the United Kingdom A.J. Smith CHAPTER 4 Investigating France's EEZ: Mapping and 49 Technology Guy Pautot CHAPTER 5 Development of the Gloria System for More 57 Effective EEZ Reconnaissance Andrew Griffiths CHAPTER 6 Efficient Hydrographic Surveying of EEZ with New 73 Multibeam Echosounder Technology for Shallow and Deep Water R. Schreiber and H.W. Schenke CHAPTER 7 Engineering Solutions for Deepwater Foundation 89 Problems Using Integrated Investigations James R. Hooper and Alan G. Young

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