A76 UNCLOS – A Danish Approach

On 16th November 2004 Denmark ratified the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and now has ten years to put claims for extension of its continental shelf in accordance with Article 76. The author discusses UN thinking behind the possibility of such extension, indicates Danish areas of geographical interest and describes efforts to build a digital data infrastructure for the project.

With UNCLOS the UN has opened up the possibility for coastal states to extend the outer limit of their continental shelf, if the state can demonstrate a so-called sub-sea natural prolongation of the continent to which the state belongs. This requires a great deal of geological and bathymetric data collection and documentation. Denmark has initiated a project to prepare possible claims for five geographical areas involving the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Requirements connected to preparation of an UNCLOS Article76 claim are huge in both organisational and technical terms and make heavy demands on data documentation and quality assurance.

Origin of UNCLOS
On 1st November 1967 Malta's Ambassador to the United Nations, Arvid Pardo gave a very famous speech to UN General Assembly on Law of the Sea, ending with a call for "an effective international regime over the seabed and the ocean floor beyond a clearly defined national jurisdiction". The UN took up this call; a general feeling existed here for securing the open sea or oceans in the possession of mankind as common heritage, but this implied a well-defined marine delimitation line dividing what belongs to all of us from individual national states. Among other UN initiatives, these deliberations resulted in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Continental Shelf
Article 76 of UNCLOS deals with the definition of the outer limit for national jurisdiction closely connected to the term ‘continental shelf’. The continental shelf of a coastal state comprises the seabed and its subsoil extending beyond the limits of its territorial sea throughout the natural prolongation of its land territory to the outer edge of the continental margin or, where the outer edge of this does not extend to that distance, to 200 miles from the baselines from which the territorial sea is measured. In cases where the continental margin extends farther than 200 miles, nations may claim jurisdiction up to 350 miles from the baseline or 100 miles from the 2,500-metre depth, depending on certain criteria such as the thickness of sedimentary deposits.

The Danish Project
Extension rights will not affect the legal status of the waters or that of the airspace above the continental shelf. But the state has sovereign right to exploit what is on and beneath the sea bottom and this may, of course, be of enormous economic interest regarding oil and gas, minerals and bio-mining. Denmark too wishes to examine this opportunity, and the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation has, together with the home rules of Faroe Islands and Greenland, initiated a project addressing this challenge. Five geographical areas of interest have been identified (Figure 1) with the potential for extending the outer limit of the continental shelf.

FOS – Foot of Slope
In Figure 2 an animation of the Arctic Ocean is illustrated giving an impression of the basic topographic structures going from dry land into the continental shelf and continuing down a slope to the ocean floor – the abyssal plain. According to UNCLOS Article76 criteria, it is particularly important to locate the foot of the (continental) slope (FOS), as this represents the starting point for calculating the outer nautical limit line using either pure geometrical formulas or geological (sediment deposits) information. FOS points may be considered sub-sea baseline points from which the outer limit can be determined. Placement of the FOS point is illustrated in Figure 3, showing an actual bathymetry model south of Greenland.

Data Collection
Optimal localisation of FOS points requires good bathymetry covering the continental margin, consisting of the seabed and subsoil of the shelf, the slope and the rise. Like many other coastal states these days, Denmark is mapping huge areas with high-quality soundings (multi-beam). Hopefully this will not only form a sound basis for a claim to the UN for extending the outer limits of the continental shelf, but also contribute to a better understanding of the oceanic environment in general. Geological evidence, especially regarding the extension of sediment deposits, implies intensive seismic and gravimetric surveying of the geographical areas of interest. In order to fulfil the requirements for a claim to UN all relevant spatial data must generally be based on real measurements to an extent that the distance between the final defining points at the outer limit does not exceed 60 nautical miles.

Data Infrastructure
The Danish Continental Shelf Project (DCSP) at an early stage recognised that such a project required a robust data infrastructure, including data management and quality assurance systems to secure sufficient data documentation and optimise project efficiency. The system adopted is called DIA76 and is based on the philosophy that robustness is gained by flexibility being created in a modular form. This means that DIA76 can easily incorporate new knowledge or data, and further smoothly add new users or replace old ones. Such flexibility is important in view of one factor inherent to the project, one that had to be recognised and dealt with. The DCSP would go on for at least ten years and during this time, experts, institutions and co-operators would come and go, but the necessary data documentation for a claim to the UN must remain intact.

Data Management
Recognising the fact that users were distributed from Greenland, over the Faroe Islands, to other institutions in Denmark naturally implied that DIA76 had to be based on internet communication via secure lines, behind a common firewall. The ‘engine’ is a central database holding all necessary spatial data and equipped with a specially designed, web-based interface for up and downloading of information (Figure 4). Special tools (CARIS LOTS) for handling the complicated criteria for determining the outer limit of the continental shelf are incorporated in DIA76. A GIS has been developed mainly aimed at project management and quality assurance. Access to DIA76 is by user-id and password with differentiated access permission; controlled access that allows confidential information and data to be handled inside it. Communication within the project is supported by an internal website, supplemented by an external website outside the firewall (www.a76.dk).

Final Remarks
Enormous volumes of data about the oceans are currently captured from the tropical to the polar regions to substantiate the claims of coastal states for extending the outer limit of their continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles. It is to be hoped that such data will, as a spin-off, be made available for research about development of the oceans and life on earth.
The Danish Continental Shelf Project has positive experience with building a digital data infrastructure from the very beginning of the project described here; this put a focus on necessary data documentation and quality assurance, including optimising internal communication.
Not only data management challenges are present in the project. Big logistic challenges lie ahead regarding data collection (Figure 5), as one of the areas of interest lies in a part of the Arctic Ocean covered with permanent sea ice - this obviously represents a project with several exciting facets.