In-use submarine cables around UK Waters.
The Drivers At the outset, it is helpful to identify the drivers which triggered the need for a generic risk assessment.
Submarine Cable Decommissioning: Assessing the Environmental Risks By Ray Drabble
Early in 2004, Southampton based Emu Ltd. a Marine Environmental Survey and Consultancy company were commissioned by a consortium of cable companies (including British Telecom & Cable & Wireless), to undertake a generic environmental risk assessment to be used during the decommissioning of redundant submarine telecommunications cables. Eighteen months on, the generic risk assessment has been successfully applied in a number of different scenarios, and has also now been posted on the United Kingdom Cable Protection Committee (UKCPC) & International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC) websites as an example of ‘Industry best practice’. Copies of the report can be obtained by non-members from the respective secretary’s of the organisations. This article affords an appropriate opportunity to briefly review this management tool and its application to the management of cable decommissioning.
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Exponential demand for global network expansion The industry has been engaged in both the replacement of first generation fibre optic cables and the expansion of its networks which have to keep pace with a near doubling in global demand for nonvoice communication every 12 months.
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The pace of technological advance Capacity in submarine cables has increased exponentially, and is now generally 10Gbit/second per wavelength, with a single fibre carrying up to 100 wavelengths. This is an increase in capacity of approximately x2000 since the early systems were installed in the 1980s.
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Increasing competition for spatial use of the seabed Trawlers have had historic claims to the seabed, but recent expansion in the oil and gas industry, marine dredging and more significantly in the development of offshore renewable energy installations means deployment and decommissioning of submarine cables now takes place in an increasingly congested environment.
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Awareness about the marine environment The public have a greater awareness about the marine environment today than earlier generations. As a responsible
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