Title: Exploring plausible future scenarios of deep seabed mining in international waters

Authors: Aurora Cato and Philippe Evoy

Journal & Year: Earth System Governance 24, 2025, Article 100249

BLUF: A qualitative scenarios study uses an impact-uncertainty grid and a 2 x 2 matrix to map four plausible futures for deep seabed mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction. The axes environmental management and benefit distribution capture the highest impact and uncertainty in the current governance debate, offering decision-makers a structured way to weigh ecological safeguards and equity alongside mineral supply goals.

Motivated by accelerating demand for energy transition minerals and persistent questions about governance in the Area, the study asks how institutional choices could shape both environmental outcomes and the distribution of benefits. Seafloor resources like nodules, crusts, and massive sulfides are introduced as a potential complement to terrestrial supply, with the CCZ cited as holding mineral inventories that could electrify one billion cars at roughly 30 percent of the greenhouse gas intensity of land-based mines. The analysis highlights the ISA’s duty to protect biodiversity in a data-limited environment while implementing the common heritage of humankind principle.

The authors employ intuitive logics to surface interacting uncertainties without forecasting a single outcome. They code drivers of change from academic literature, policy documents, and media, then corroborate and refine them through semi-structured interviews with recognized stakeholders. Drivers are placed on an impact-uncertainty grid to distinguish key trends, critical uncertainties, and secondary elements. The two highest scoring uncertainties form the axes of a 2 x 2 matrix, from which four narratives are elaborated using common descriptors, including governance composition, industry structure, technology, and compliance. The article explicitly assumes that DSM goes forward to explore policy-relevant variation within that boundary condition. Figure 1 summarizes coding frequencies across drivers, Figure 2 shows the impact-uncertainty grid, and Figure 3 presents the scenario matrix from which the narratives follow.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Key trends likely to influence DSM regardless of other factors include incentives for economic growth, geopolitical competition around mineral supply chains, and incremental improvements in mining technology that interviewees expect to reduce environmental impacts. In contrast, mineral demand remains contested among experts because emerging battery chemistries and circular economy strategies may alter the scale and timing of new primary supply. Additional uncertainties include the speed of exploitation rulemaking and the rate at which deep-sea ecological research can define thresholds such as serious harm.

The two axis drivers are selected for their combination of frequency in the discourse and divergent stakeholder views. Environmental management covers the breadth of rules, enforcement capacity, and compliance expectations under ISA oversight. Benefit distribution covers both financial mechanisms such as progressive royalties and non-monetary gains like capacity building, data sharing, and technology transfer.

The four scenario narratives:

Imperialist Abyss: Weak environmental management and inequitable benefit distribution. Rapid commercial activity proceeds under limited transparency and low adaptive capacity. Over time, the concentration of market power and regulatory capture increases ecological risk and marginalizes developing states.

Anthropocentric Frontier: Weak environmental management with stronger redistribution. Participation broadens and financial transfers operate, yet environmental safeguards are not robustly enforced. High approval rates and short timelines deliver revenues while leaving impacts and thresholds under-specified.

Seabed Garden Club: Strong environmental management and restrictive distribution. A moratorium period enables research, technology maturation, and expanding protected areas. Entry barriers and limited technology sharing concentrate activity among a small set of well-resourced actors.

Blue Heritage Harmony: Strong environmental management and stronger redistribution. After extended preparation, operations proceed in a staged manner with third-party verification, a functional Enterprise, progressive royalties, and explicit attention to intergenerational equity and stakeholder participation.

By explicitly connecting these narratives to the grid in Figure 2 and the matrix in Figure 3, the study offers a practical template for stress-testing policy options. The device helps regulators and contractors identify which combinations of safeguards and sharing arrangements keep development on a transparent and evidence-informed path under changing market and ecological knowledge conditions.

The analysis indicates that policy choices about the scope and enforcement of environmental management and the design of benefit sharing are central leverage points. The framework encourages staged approval linked to research milestones, credible third-party monitoring, and data-sharing provisions that build legitimacy. It also invites distributional design that aligns incentives for capacity building and participation by developing states with transparent operational standards. These elements are repeatedly emphasized as means to navigate uncertainty while meeting biodiversity and equity objectives.