Exploring Deep-sea Typical Habitats for Achieving Sustainable Development

The deep sea holds a wealth of unique and diverse habitats that are still largely unexplored and vulnerable. At the same time, the deep ocean poses a great potential for resources, which requires scientific understanding to achieve sustainable development. The UN Ocean Decade endorsed programme “Digital Deep-sea Typical Habitats" (Digital DEPTH) focuses on investigating the deep-sea habitats, such as seamounts, mid-ocean ridges, submarine slopes, and abyssal plains, that are vulnerable to natural and climate changes, as well as human activities. Scientific studies are jointly made over 40 countries with more than 70 institutes to develop long-term intelligent monitoring technologies for the deep ocean. The programme targets to enhance the prediction ability of typical deep-sea habitats to respond to disturbances, such as climate change and deep-sea mining, and construct a digital platform for the habitats, as well as formulating solutions for deep-sea governance. In particular, a 2024 West Pacific International Cruises was carried out over 45 days where the Jiaolong manned submersible successfully completed the 18 dives during the expedition. A total of 8 foreign scientists and 3 scientists from Hong Kong, China, took the Jiaolong to dive in this voyage, covering 6 seamounts and 1 basin in the Western Pacific. The Digital DEPTH serves as a great platform for fostering international collaboration on studying the deep-sea habitat and achieving sustainable development.