ISO 23730:2022

Marine technology - Marine environment impact assessment (MEIA) - General technical requirements

This document provides general technical guidance for the operation of marine environment impact assessments (MEIA) to assess the degree of impact of deep-sea activities of exploration and exploitation for mineral resources to the marine environment. It does not cover matters related to the legal framework for MEIA and deep-sea activities on energy resources.

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General Information

• Status: Published
• Publication Date: 03-Apr-2022
• ICS: 13.020.30 - Environmental impact assessment
• ICS: 47.020.01 - General standards related to shipbuilding and marine structures
• Technical Committee: ISO/TC 8/SC 13 - Marine technology
• Drafting Committee: ISO/TC 8/SC 13/WG 4 - Marine environment impact assessment
• Current Stage: 6060 - International Standard published
• Start Date: 04-Apr-2022
• Due Date: 21-Jan-2022
• Completion Date: 04-Apr-2022

Overview

ISO 23730:2022 - Marine technology - Marine environment impact assessment (MEIA) - General technical requirements provides general technical guidance for conducting marine environment impact assessments (MEIA) focused on the environmental effects of deep‑sea exploration and exploitation for mineral resources. The standard addresses practical, technical aspects of MEIA (survey planning, data collection, analysis and monitoring) but does not cover legal frameworks or deep‑sea activities for energy resources.

Key topics and technical requirements

• Cost‑effective operation: Plan MEIA activities alongside exploration to reduce ship time and expense; begin baseline data collection early in exploration cruises.
• Baseline data & habitat mapping: Use GIS mapping, underwater vehicles with acoustic positioning, imaging, sample collection and seafloor observatories to establish baseline conditions and faunal distribution. Metadata and data provenance are required for completeness.
• Estimation of impacts: Identify potential impacts from seabed mining operations (mining machines, ore transport, fluid discharge) while accounting for natural variability (physicochemical fluctuations, geophysical events) to avoid confounding results.
• Estimation of resilience: Assess biological recoverability and genetic connectivity (larval dispersal) as indicators of ecosystem resilience; use modelling approaches to estimate community recoverability.
• Monitoring: Define long‑term monitoring targets such as sediment plume dispersion, soundscape/noise, discharged fluid pollution and post‑mining site recovery. Cost‑effective monitoring techniques include imaging (cameras) and hydrophones for soundscape assessment.

Practical applications and users

ISO 23730 is designed for practical use in planning and executing MEIA for deep‑sea mineral activities. Typical users include:

• Marine technology engineers and survey teams planning deep‑sea cruises and vehicle deployments
• Environmental consultants conducting baseline assessments and EIAs for seabed mining proposals
• Mining operators developing monitoring and mitigation plans for exploration and exploitation activities
• Regulators and policymakers seeking technical criteria for assessment and monitoring requirements
• Researchers and GIS specialists involved in habitat mapping, modelling resilience and long‑term ecological monitoring

Use cases include designing integrated exploration and environmental surveys, developing habitat maps, quantifying impacts and resilience, and implementing long‑term soundscape and plume monitoring programs.

Related standards

ISO 23730 references and complements other standards and guidance, for example:

• ISO 23731, ISO 23732, ISO 23734 (deep‑sea observation and monitoring methods)
• ISO 19101‑1 / 19101‑2, ISO 19105, ISO 19123 (geospatial and metadata standards)
• ISO 12913, ISO 18405 (soundscape and underwater acoustics)

Keywords: ISO 23730:2022, MEIA, marine environment impact assessment, deep‑sea mining, habitat mapping, baseline data, monitoring, sediment plume, soundscape, GIS mapping.

Standards Content (Sample)

INTERNATIONAL ISO
STANDARD 23730
First edition
2022-04
Marine technology — Marine
environment impact assessment
(MEIA) — General technical
requirements
Reference number
© ISO 2022
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, or required in the context of its implementation, no part of this publication may
be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting on
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Website: www.iso.org
Published in Switzerland
ii
Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 General principles . 1
5 Technical guidance .2
5.1 Cost-effective operation . 2
5.2 Habitat mapping . 2
5.3 Estimation of impacts . 2
5.4 Estimation of resilience . 3
5 . 5 Mon it or i n g . 3
Annex A (informative) Comparison between conventional and new strategic MEIA
processes . 4
Bibliography . 5
iii
Foreword
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This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 8 Ships and marine technology,
Subcommittee SC 13, Marine technology.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A
complete listing of these bodies can be found at www.iso.org/members.html.
iv
Introduction
Deep-sea environments are faced with cumulative effects of many human activities, such as ocean
acidification, waste deposition, oil exploitation, fishing, maritime transport, and potential seabed
mining. Criteria to manage marine environmental conditions, including offshore and deep-sea areas,
have been proposed by agencies of the United Nations. These suggested criteria include ecologically
and biologically significant areas (EBSAs) by the Convention for Biological Diversity; vulnerable
marine ecosystems (VMEs) by the Food and Agriculture Organization; and particularly sensitive sea
[1]
areas (PSSAs) by the International Maritime Organization . The Commission of the International
Seabed Authority (ISA) has published recommendations for the guidance on environmental impact
assessments (EIA) for seabed mining in the Area, for use by countries which have any deep-sea mining
contracts and which recognize the primary importance of appropriate performance standards on the
[2,3]
related environmental issues .
Since the mid-1990s, attention has been paid to potential environmental impacts caused by deep-sea
mining. Developing protocols for EIA has been discussed in the meetings conducted by the scientific
[4]
communities and ISA . A practical issue to address is the development of a cost-effective operation for
[5,6]
observation and monitoring in seabed mining sites .
Under these circumstances, this document gives a technical concept and requirements to conduct a
practical marine EIA for exploration and exploitation of mineral resources and in situ monitoring of
deep-sea mining sites.
v
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO 23730:2022(E)
Marine technology — Marine environment impact
assessment (MEIA) — General technical requirements
1 Scope
This document provides general technical guidance for the operation of marine environment impact
assessments (MEIA) to assess the degree of impact of deep-sea activities of exploration and exploitation
for mineral resources to the marine environment. It does not cover matters related to the legal
framework for MEIA and deep-sea activities on energy resources.
2 Normative references
There are no normative references in this document.
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminology databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
— ISO Online browsing platform: available at https:// www .iso .org/ obp
— IEC Electropedia: available at https:// www .electropedia .org/
3.1
baseline data
data set used to assess the impacts of post-implementation of a deep-sea activity
3.2
habitat mapping
mapping of the marine habitat by data sets of observations and measures collected from the
environment, providing a tool for ecological research and management of the conservation and
sustainable use of marine resources
3.3
soundscape
marine acoustic environment consisting of natural sounds ranging between 1 Hz and 100 kHz, from
animals, weather and waves, or of anthropogenic origin, that provides a baseline for acoustic ecology
4 General principles
Technical guidance is provided on MEIA for deep-sea mining, in order to conduct operations of deep-
sea survey and monitoring with economic efficiency, and to keep the data quality on assessment. The
MEIA described in this document provide guidance on the following:
— cost effective operation of deep-sea survey and monitoring;
— habitat mapping by baseline data,
— estimation of impacts from seabed mining;
— monitoring of measures for mitigation;
— post-mining monitoring.
5 Technical guidance
5.1 Cost-effective operation
An environmental survey and actual process of MEIA should be planned after the conclusive results
of exploration for mineral deposition site of target ore. Reducing expenditure for deep-sea cruise is an
important issue to make a cost-effective operation plan.
To reduce the cost for exploration ships, the collection of baseline data for MEIA shall start within the
early phase of the exploration cruise, to progress habitat mapping and environmental assessment.
[7,8]
Annex A provides a comparison between conventional and new strategic processes of MEIA .
5.2 Habitat mapping
Geological Information System (GIS) mapping is a common technique to determine the habitat condition
and faunal distribution. The technique using underwater vehicles equipped with an acoustic positioning
[9,10]
system is suitable for the GIS mapping at deep-seafloor .
Sample collection can provide an evidence of faunal distribution and abundance in pinpointed sites. The
[11]
technique on imaging data are useful to collect faunal data in broad areas by underwater vehicles
[12]
and to determine the long-term fluctuation by seafloor observatories .
The habitat mapping shall be employed to analyse the baseline condition of the deep-sea ecosystem. It
provides a reference that should be c
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