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Deep-sea mining poses an unjustifiable environmental risk

Nature Sustainability volume 7, pages 836–838 (2024)Cite this article

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Deep-sea mining could provide a substantial supply of metals that we urgently need to decarbonize our society, yet its environmental impact remains intractable. Considering on-land resources remain abundant and can be extracted using well-established risk management, deep-sea mining cannot currently be justified.

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Fig. 1: Schematic diagram of the three main ore deposit types currently proposed for DSM and the likely environmental impacts of such activity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Camborne School of Mines, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Cornwall, UK

    Rich Crane, Kate Littler, Kathryn Moore & Declan Vogt

  2. Department of Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Cornwall, UK

    Chris Laing & Callum Roberts

  3. Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Kirsten Thompson

  4. Centre for Geography and Environmental Science, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Cornwall, UK

    James Scourse

Authors
  1. Rich Crane
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  2. Chris Laing
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  3. Kate Littler
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  4. Kathryn Moore
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  5. Callum Roberts
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  6. Kirsten Thompson
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  7. Declan Vogt
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  8. James Scourse
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Correspondence to Rich Crane.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Crane, R., Laing, C., Littler, K. et al. Deep-sea mining poses an unjustifiable environmental risk. Nat Sustain 7, 836–838 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01326-6

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