Ocean Resources: Volume I: Assessment and Utilisation

324 Pages·1990·11.52 MB·English

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
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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