| Project Detail |
Advanced technologies to monitor deep-sea activities
The deep sea holds both sensitive ecosystems and mineral resources. Therefore, before any activity starts, we must be able to evaluate, mitigate and monitor its impact. The EU-funded TRIDENT project will develop a monitoring and inspection system for environmental impact assessment of deep-sea exploration and future exploitation activities. Complying with international and national regulations, this new system will integrate new technology and innovative solutions to operate autonomously in remote areas under extreme conditions, providing real-time data to the authorities. TRIDENT will identify and measure all relevant physical, chemical, geological and biological parameters at the sea surface, mid-water and on the ocean floor. Moreover, it will identify gaps in existing data sets and develop solutions to address them.
TRIDENT aims to contribute to a sustainable exploitation of seabed mineral resources, by developing a reliable, transparent and cost-effective system for prediction and continuous environmental impact monitoring of exploration and exploitation activities in the deep sea. This system will develop and integrate technology and novel solutions to operate autonomously in remote areas under extreme conditions, and provide real-time data to permitting and supervising authorities. The effective monitoring and inspection system to be developed will comply with international and national legal frameworks.
TRIDENT will identify all relevant physical, chemical, geological and biological parameters to be measured at the sea surface, mid-water and seabed. The project will also identify gaps in existing data sets and develop solutions to address them. These are essential steps to develop statistically robust environmental baselines, establish reliable indicators of good environmental status and define thresholds for significant impact, enabling the standardization of tools and methods. The project consortium will subsequently develop and test an integrated system of static and mobile observatory platforms equipped with the latest automatic sensors and samplers to measure environmental parameters on mining and reference areas at representative spatial and temporal scales. To support quick actions for preventing serious harm to the environment, the system will implement high-capacity data handling pipelines able to collect, transmit, process and display monitoring data in near real time. Finally, we will provide technological and systemic solutions for forecasting potential environmental impacts of using the developed monitoring and mitigation methods. |
