What are the environmental risks associated with seabed mining for rare earth elements in the Baltic Sea? Quantifying impacts on benthic biodiversity and ecosystem processes

The transition to a low carbon economy is increasing global demand for rare Earth elements (REE), driven by the growth of infrastructure necessary for renewable energy and electrification of the transport sector. How to sustainably meet this increased demand of REE is a vital challenge for societies around the world.

Seabed mining (SBM), previously not economically viable, is now considered a feasible way to meet this demand of REE. There are now multiple initiatives exploring the potential of SBM, one of them in advanced stage in the Baltic Sea.

It is thus urgent to understand the environmental risks associated with SBM before the projected expansion of this industry.

There is now focus on the impacts of SBM activities in the deep sea on large invertebrates, but major knowledge gaps exist on the impacts to coastal ecosystems particularly regarding microbial benthic communities and the ecosystem processes they drive.

The proposed project will assess the impacts of SBM on all benthic communities (microbes, protist, meio-and macrofauna) and ecosystem processes mediating benthic carbon and nitrogen cycling in an area currently being considered for exploration in the Baltic.

This unique empirical data will then be modelled to quantify the environmental risks of SBM in the Baltic under different exploration scenarios using an probabilistic methods.

The proposed results will provide managers with tools to support evidence-based regulation of SBM that ensures its sustainability.