US: The U.N.-backed project, called Seabed 2030, is urging countries and companies to pool data to create a map of the entire ocean floor by 2030 which will be freely available to all.
“We obviously need a lot of cooperation from different parties – individuals as well as private companies,” said Mao Hasebe, project coordinator at the Nippon Foundation, a Japanese philanthropic organization supporting the initiative.
The project, which launched in 2017, is expected to cost about $3 billion. It is a collaboration between the Nippon Foundation and GEBCO, a non-profit association of experts, which is already involved in charting the ocean floor.
The end result would be greater knowledge of the oceans’ biodiversity, improved understanding of the climate, advanced warning of impending disasters, and the ability to better protect or exploit deep-sea resources, said Hasebe.
High tech sonar technology will be put into use to map the whole ocean floor.
“With advanced sonar technology it really is like seeing. I think we’ve come out of the era of being the blind man with the stick,” said Robert Larter, a marine geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey.
“We can survey much more efficiently – and, not only that, but in much greater detail,” he further added.
To add much more effort in the project the energy giant Shell, hosted a global competition- the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE -offering $7 million to teams that can develop technologies to conduct ocean exploration autonomously, rapidly and to a high resolution.
Dutch energy prospector Fugro and deep-sea mapping firm Ocean Infinity are so far the biggest contributors for the project.
Talking about the economy the experts share their view that Seabed 2030 would be helpful in raising the world economy as countries and companies seek to protect or exploit deep-sea resources – from exploring for oil and gas to installing wind farms or laying fibre-optic cables for the internet.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) the ocean economy can contribute $3 trillion to the world economy by 2030, up from $1.5 trillion in 2010.
