Marine resources
Marine resources encompass the biotic and abiotic assets extracted or derived from the world's oceans and seas, including living organisms such as fish stocks, shellfish, and marine mammals, as well as non-living elements like seabed minerals, hydrocarbons, and saline compounds.[1][2] These resources form the basis of vital human activities, from providing approximately 200 billion pounds of seafood annually to supplying raw materials for energy, construction, and emerging technologies.[3] Economically, they underpin industries worldwide; in the United States alone, the marine economy generated $511 billion in value added to gross domestic product in 2023, accounting for 1.8% of the national total and reflecting growth driven by sectors like offshore energy and fisheries.[4][5] Key exploitation methods include commercial fishing, which sustains food security for billions but has resulted in widespread overfishing, where harvest rates exceed species' reproductive capacities, leading to depleted populations and ecosystem imbalances.[6][7] Non-living resources, such as oil and gas from continental shelves or polymetallic nodules from deep-sea floors, offer substantial energy and mineral yields but raise concerns over environmental extraction impacts, including habitat disruption and potential biodiversity loss.[8] Controversies persist around the sustainability of these pursuits, with empirical evidence showing that despite international quotas and management efforts, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing continues to exacerbate depletion in high-value stocks like tuna and cod.[9][10] Advances in aquaculture and renewable ocean energy, such as tidal and wave power, represent defining opportunities for mitigating reliance on wild capture, though scaling these requires addressing technological and regulatory hurdles to prevent unintended ecological consequences.[11]Definition and Classification
Core Definition
Marine resources are the living and non-living natural components of ocean and sea environments that provide economic, ecological, or utilitarian value to human activities.[12] These encompass biotic elements, such as fish, marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds, and plankton, which sustain fisheries and form foundational food webs in marine ecosystems.[13] Abiotic elements include seabed minerals like polymetallic nodules containing manganese, cobalt, and nickel; hydrocarbon reserves such as oil and gas; and physical phenomena exploitable for energy, including tidal currents and offshore winds.[8] [14] The scope of marine resources extends across the water column, seafloor, and sub-seafloor, covering approximately 71% of Earth's surface area occupied by oceans.[15] Extraction and utilization of these resources underpin sectors like global protein supply from capture fisheries, which yielded 90.3 million tonnes in 2020, and emerging deep-sea mining for critical minerals essential to electronics and renewable technologies.[16] However, their finite or replenishable nature—depending on the resource type—necessitates empirical assessment of extraction rates against natural regeneration capacities to avoid depletion, as demonstrated by historical overfishing cases where stocks collapsed due to exceeding maximum sustainable yields.[17]Types of Resources
Marine resources are primarily classified into biological and non-biological categories, reflecting their origin from living organisms or inanimate ocean components.[2] Biological resources derive from marine life forms, including fish stocks, crustaceans, mollusks, marine mammals, and algae, which support fisheries and aquaculture industries.[18] These resources are renewable through natural reproduction and ecological processes but require sustainable management to prevent depletion, as evidenced by global fish catches exceeding 90 million metric tons annually in recent years.[19] Non-biological resources encompass abiotic elements such as seabed minerals (e.g., polymetallic nodules rich in manganese, nickel, and cobalt), hydrocarbons like oil and natural gas, and physical aggregates including sand and gravel used in construction.[20] Within biological types, distinctions exist between commercially harvested species and non-commercial biota that contribute to ecosystem services, such as coral reefs providing coastal protection against erosion.[3] For non-biological categories, mineral deposits are concentrated in continental shelves and deep-sea abyssal plains, with estimated reserves of deep-sea nodules covering over 100 million square kilometers of ocean floor.[21] Energy resources form a subset, including fossil fuels from ancient marine sediments—accounting for about 30% of global oil production from offshore fields—and emerging renewables like tidal currents and offshore wind, harnessed via turbines in coastal zones.[3] This classification underscores the dual nature of marine exploitation, balancing biotic renewal rates against abiotic finite stocks.[22]Historical Exploitation
Pre-Industrial Era
Pre-industrial exploitation of marine resources centered on coastal and near-shore activities, limited by rudimentary technologies such as handmade nets, bone hooks, spears, and traps, which constrained harvests to subsistence levels for most communities.[23] Archaeological records show reliance on fish, shellfish, and seaweed from prehistoric times, with shell middens in coastal sites indicating sustained use by hunter-gatherers as early as 40,000 years ago in regions like South Africa and Australia.[24] In antiquity, civilizations such as the Egyptians (circa 3000 BCE) and Phoenicians employed woven nets and weirs for riverine and coastal fishing, while Romans scaled processing through garum production—fermented fish sauce—from Mediterranean catches, supporting trade across the empire by the 1st century CE.[25] These methods yielded annual hauls estimated in tens of thousands of tons regionally but avoided widespread depletion due to labor-intensive capture and lack of preservation beyond salting or drying.[26] Whaling represented an early form of targeted marine mammal exploitation, beginning sporadically in prehistoric Japan and Norway around 6000 BCE with strandings and opportunistic hunts using stone tools, but organizing commercially in medieval Europe.[27] Basque whalers in the Bay of Biscay pioneered right whale hunts from the 11th century, deploying rowed shallops to lance and tow carcasses for blubber rendering into oil (used for lighting and lubricants) and baleen for corsets and fishing rods, yielding up to 100 whales per season by the 14th century.[28] Norse communities similarly harvested drift whales and small cetaceans, with sagas documenting kills of up to 50 tons of blubber annually per fjord settlement.[29] By the 16th century, Basque efforts had locally extirpated right whale stocks in the eastern Atlantic, compelling migration to Newfoundland grounds and demonstrating pre-industrial capacity for resource depletion through persistent, technology-limited pressure.[30] Extraction of non-biological resources included solar-evaporated seawater salt, the oldest method documented in Mesopotamian texts around 2000 BCE and widespread in European salterns by the Iron Age, where tidal ponds concentrated brine for crystallization, producing up to 10-20 tons annually per coastal site for food preservation and trade.[31][32] Other minor uses encompassed pearl diving in the Persian Gulf (from 3000 BCE, yielding gem-quality nacre for elite adornment) and coral harvesting in the Mediterranean by Phoenicians for dyes and tools, but these remained artisanal and regionally confined without mechanized scaling.[24] Overall, pre-industrial limits—sail-dependent vessels, manual processing, and perishability—prevented global overexploitation, though localized declines underscored vulnerability to unchecked communal access.[33]Industrial and Modern Expansion
The advent of steam-powered trawlers in the late 19th century marked the onset of industrial-scale fishing, enabling vessels to operate farther offshore and process larger catches with beam trawls and steam winches, as exemplified by the expansion of the Grimsby fishing fleet in Britain around 1846.[23] This mechanization dramatically increased efficiency over sail-dependent methods, with global marine capture fisheries production rising from approximately 19 million tonnes in 1950 to over 40 million tonnes by the 1960s, driven by diesel engines and refrigeration allowing extended voyages.[34] [10] Post-World War II economic recovery fueled further expansion in the 1950s, introducing factory ships capable of processing and freezing catches at sea, sonar for locating schools, and stern trawlers for higher yields, which propelled wild capture to a peak of 86 million tonnes in 1996 before stabilizing around 90 million tonnes amid signs of overcapacity.[35] [10] Distant-water fleets from nations like the Soviet Union and Japan dominated, contributing to a tripling of global production between 1950 and 1970, though this often exceeded sustainable levels in key stocks such as North Atlantic cod.[34] [36] Parallel to fisheries, offshore oil and gas extraction emerged industrially in the mid-20th century, with the first submersible platform deployed in 1938 off California, but true expansion occurred after 1947 when Kerr-McGee's platform in the Gulf of Mexico enabled drilling beyond sight of land in 18 meters of water.[37] The 1970s energy crises spurred technological advances like jack-up rigs and semi-submersibles, pushing operations into deeper waters exceeding 1,000 meters by the 1980s, with global offshore production rising from negligible shares pre-1950 to supplying about 30% of world oil by the 2000s.[38] [39] Exploitation of non-energy marine minerals remained limited to coastal dredging for sand, gravel, and placer deposits during this period, with deep-sea ventures for polymetallic nodules explored experimentally since the 1970s but not commercially scaled due to technological and economic barriers, despite awareness of deposits since the 1860s.[40] [41] Overall, industrial and modern phases shifted marine resource use from localized, low-volume extraction to global, capital-intensive operations, amplifying yields but straining ecosystems through habitat disruption and stock depletion.[10]Biological Resources
Fisheries and Wild Capture
Wild capture fisheries, also known as capture fisheries, involve the harvesting of fish and other aquatic organisms from their natural habitats in marine environments without human intervention in their rearing or growth. In 2022, global capture fisheries production reached 92.3 million metric tons (MT), of which approximately 81 million MT originated from marine waters, accounting for about 41% of total fisheries and aquaculture output.[42] Marine wild capture has remained relatively stable since the late 1980s, plateauing around 80-90 million MT annually due to limits in fish stock productivity and increasing regulatory constraints, contrasting with the rapid growth in aquaculture production.[10] Major marine capture species include small pelagic fish such as Peruvian anchoveta (Engraulis ringens), which dominated global landings with over 4 million MT in recent years, followed by Alaska pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus) and various tunas like skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis).[42] These species are primarily harvested through industrial methods in upwelling zones and high-seas fisheries; for instance, the Southeast Pacific anchoveta fishery off Peru contributes significantly to global volumes due to its biomass fluctuations driven by environmental factors like El Niño events.[19] Demersal species, such as cod (Gadus morhua) and haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), and large pelagics like bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) are caught via trawling, longlining, and purse seining, with production concentrated in the Northwest Pacific, Northeast Atlantic, and Western Central Pacific oceans. Stock status assessments indicate that 64.5% of global marine fish stocks were fished at biologically sustainable levels as of the latest comprehensive data, though overfishing prevalence has risen in unmanaged areas, with one-third of assessed stocks classified as overfished in 2017, exerting pressure on recruitment and long-term yields.[43][10] Regional disparities persist: stocks in the Northwest Pacific face high exploitation rates exceeding sustainable levels, while some Atlantic stocks benefit from quotas under frameworks like the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy. Bycatch, estimated at 10-20% of total catch in some fisheries, further complicates sustainability by discarding non-target species and disrupting ecosystems.[44] Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing undermines management efforts, representing 11-26 million MT annually or 10-23.5 billion USD in value, equivalent to 11-26% of reported global catch, with higher rates in developing regions lacking enforcement capacity.[45] This activity depletes stocks, distorts markets by undercutting legal operators, and hampers data accuracy for stock assessments, as unreported catches evade official statistics compiled by organizations like the FAO. Efforts to combat IUU include vessel monitoring systems (VMS), port state measures under the FAO Agreement on Port State Measures (2009), and satellite tracking, which have reduced incidents in monitored fleets but struggle against transshipment and flags of convenience.[46] Despite these challenges, certified sustainable fisheries, such as those under the Marine Stewardship Council, demonstrate that targeted management can restore stocks, as seen in the rebound of Northeast Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) following 1970s collapses.[44]Aquaculture and Mariculture
Aquaculture encompasses the controlled cultivation of aquatic organisms, including fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and aquatic plants, in freshwater, brackish, or marine environments, while mariculture specifically refers to the subset conducted in seawater or saline conditions, such as coastal bays, offshore cages, or ocean pens.[47] Global aquaculture production, which includes mariculture, reached 130.9 million tonnes in 2022, comprising 94.4 million tonnes of aquatic animals and representing 51% of total global aquatic animal production from fisheries and aquaculture combined.[48] Marine and coastal aquaculture contributed significantly to this, with production trends showing steady growth since 1950, driven by demand for protein-rich seafood and technological advances in feed and containment systems.[49] Key mariculture species include bivalve mollusks such as oysters, mussels, clams, and scallops, which dominate extractive systems due to their filter-feeding nature and low input requirements, alongside fed species like salmon, shrimp, and sea basses that rely on formulated feeds and are prone to higher environmental footprints from waste discharge.[49] In 2022, finfish such as Atlantic salmon accounted for major volumes in countries like Norway and Chile, while seaweed farming, primarily in Asia, added tens of millions of tonnes, with China leading global output at over 20 million tonnes annually.[50] Production methods vary: pond-based systems for shrimp in Southeast Asia, net-pen cages for salmon in temperate waters, and longline or raft cultures for bivalves and algae in coastal zones, with offshore mariculture emerging to reduce nearshore ecological pressures.[51] Asia produces over 90% of global aquaculture volume, with China alone responsible for about 60% of marine output, including dominant shares in seaweed and shellfish; Europe and the Americas focus on high-value fed species like salmon, yielding economic multipliers through exports.[50] In the United States, mariculture sales contributed to the $1.9 billion total aquaculture value in 2023, with mollusks generating $0.84 billion in economic output, supporting jobs in coastal regions.[52] [53] Growth rates have outpaced wild capture fisheries, with aquaculture expanding at 5-7% annually in recent decades, projected to supply 60% of aquatic animal protein by 2030 amid stagnating wild stocks.[54] Environmental impacts include organic enrichment from uneaten feed and feces leading to benthic hypoxia in intensive fed systems, nutrient loading causing algal blooms and eutrophication, and risks of disease transmission or genetic pollution from escaped farmed stock interbreeding with wild populations.[55] [56] Antibiotic use in shrimp and salmon farming has raised concerns over antimicrobial resistance, though regulatory improvements and integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA)—combining fed species with extractive ones like seaweed to recycle nutrients—mitigate some effects, as evidenced by reduced waste in pilot systems.[55] Sustainable practices, including closed containment and feed efficiency enhancements, are increasingly adopted to balance production gains with ecosystem preservation, with FAO data indicating that well-managed mariculture can enhance local biodiversity through habitat creation in bivalve reefs.[19]Biodiversity and Non-Commercial Biota
Marine biodiversity encompasses a vast array of organisms, with approximately 242,000 valid species described as of 2023, predominantly non-commercial biota such as microbes, plankton, corals, sponges, and deep-sea invertebrates that form the base of ocean food webs and ecosystems.[57] Estimates suggest the total number of marine species could exceed 2 million, with over 91% remaining undescribed, highlighting the dominance of non-commercial forms like bacteria and protists that drive primary production and nutrient cycling.[58] These biota underpin ecosystem resilience, enabling adaptation to environmental changes through diverse metabolic pathways and symbiotic interactions not reliant on direct human harvest.[59] Non-commercial marine biota play critical ecological roles, including the production of roughly 50-80% of Earth's oxygen via phytoplankton photosynthesis and facilitation of carbon sequestration through microbial decomposition and habitat formation by organisms like seagrasses and mangroves.[60] Invertebrates and microbial communities mediate biogeochemical cycles, recycling nutrients essential for sustaining commercial fisheries indirectly, as larval stages of many fish species depend on these foundational populations for survival.[61] Loss of such biota, as observed in deoxygenated dead zones exceeding 245,000 square kilometers globally in 2021, disrupts these processes, reducing overall productivity without immediate commercial visibility.[62] Beyond ecology, non-commercial biota hold untapped resource potential through bioprospecting, where genetic and biochemical compounds from deep-sea microbes and extremophiles have yielded novel antibiotics and enzymes, with marine-derived pharmaceuticals comprising about 1% of approved drugs as of 2022 but projected to grow amid antibiotic resistance challenges.[63] For instance, over 20,000 marine natural products have been isolated since the 1960s, primarily from non-commercial sponges and bacteria, offering pathways for sustainable biotechnology without large-scale harvesting.[64] This potential underscores the strategic value of conserving these biota, as their diversity—concentrated in hotspots like coral reefs supporting 25% of marine species despite covering less than 0.1% of ocean area—provides raw material for future innovations in medicine and industry.[62]Non-Biological Resources
Mineral and Geological Deposits
Marine mineral deposits primarily consist of polymetallic nodules, cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts, and seafloor massive sulfide (SMS) deposits, which form through slow precipitation of metals from seawater or hydrothermal fluids on the ocean floor.[14] These resources occur in deep-sea environments beyond national jurisdictions or within exclusive economic zones, with concentrations driven by geological processes such as sedimentation, volcanism, and ocean currents.[65] Unlike terrestrial ores, marine deposits are dispersed over vast abyssal plains, seamounts, and mid-ocean ridges, posing unique extraction challenges due to water depths exceeding 4,000 meters in many cases.[66] Polymetallic nodules, also known as manganese nodules, are potato-sized concretions composed mainly of manganese and iron hydroxides layered around a nucleus, enriched with nickel (1.3%), copper (1.07%), cobalt (0.21%), and molybdenum.[66] They accumulate at rates of millimeters per million years on abyssal plains with low sedimentation, notably in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) of the Pacific Ocean, spanning about 4.5 million square kilometers and holding estimated resources of over 21 billion tons of nodules containing 280 million tons of nickel, 240 million tons of copper, and 50 million tons of cobalt.[67] [68] Exploration contracts issued by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) since 2001 cover roughly 1.3 million square kilometers in the CCZ, though commercial extraction has not commenced as of 2025 due to technological and regulatory hurdles.[67] Cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts form as pavements up to 25 centimeters thick on hard substrates like seamounts, ridges, and plateaus at depths of 400 to 5,000 meters, primarily through hydrogenetic precipitation influenced by oxygen-rich bottom waters.[69] These crusts contain up to 2% cobalt, alongside platinum-group elements, rare earth elements, and tellurium, with Pacific occurrences on guyots and volcanic edifices showing higher concentrations where currents prevent sediment burial.[66] [70] Global estimates suggest billions of tons of crusts, but recoverability is limited by their thin, irregular distribution; ISA contracts since 2001 have delineated areas in the Prime Crust Zone of the Pacific, yet no large-scale mining has occurred.[71] Seafloor massive sulfide deposits arise from hydrothermal venting at mid-ocean ridges and volcanic arcs, precipitating sulfide minerals like pyrite, chalcopyrite, and sphalerite rich in copper, zinc, lead, gold, and silver, often with stockwork feeders beneath chimneys.[72] These occur at depths of 1,000 to 4,000 meters along 60,000 kilometers of spreading centers, with examples like the Solwara 1 deposit in Papua New Guinea's EEZ containing over 1 million tons of ore grading 7.2% copper and 4.8 grams per ton gold.[73] [68] Accumulations are smaller than ancient volcanogenic massive sulfides on land, typically 0.1 to 10 million tons per site, and are actively replenished by ongoing volcanism, though exploitation trials, such as Nautilus Minerals' aborted 2018 project, highlight risks from seismic instability and fluid chemistry.[74] [75] Shallow-water geological deposits, including placer sands and gravels, have seen limited historical exploitation for tin, diamonds, and aggregates, but deep-sea polymetallic resources remain largely unmined as of 2025, with focus shifting to critical metals amid terrestrial supply constraints.[76] USGS assessments since the 1970s indicate U.S. EEZ holdings of these deposits exceed continental reserves for certain metals, underscoring their strategic potential despite extraction costs exceeding $100 per ton for nodules.[77] [65]Energy Resources
Marine energy resources primarily consist of offshore hydrocarbon deposits and renewable ocean-based sources such as wind, waves, tides, and currents. Offshore oil and natural gas extraction has historically dominated, accounting for a substantial portion of global production, while renewables like offshore wind have expanded rapidly in recent years, though ocean hydrokinetic technologies remain nascent.[78][79] Offshore oil production reached approximately 25.2 million barrels per day in 2024, representing about 27% of global oil output, with production levels stable year-over-year despite OPEC+ cuts. Natural gas production from offshore fields also contributes significantly, with U.S. federal offshore output alone totaling 668 million barrels of oil and 700 billion cubic feet of gas in fiscal year 2024, primarily from the Gulf of Mexico. These resources are concentrated in regions like the North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Persian Gulf, where deepwater drilling technologies have enabled access to reserves estimated in billions of barrels of oil equivalent.[80][81] Offshore wind has emerged as the leading marine renewable energy source, with global installed capacity reaching 83 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2024, sufficient to power around 73 million households. Capacity additions are projected to hit 16 GW in 2025, driven largely by China and Europe, where fixed-bottom turbines in shallow waters predominate, though floating platforms are scaling for deeper sites. In contrast, wave and tidal energy technologies lag, with total global ocean energy capacity at just 494 megawatts (MW) by late 2024, mostly from tidal barrage and stream systems in limited sites like the Sihwa Lake in South Korea and MeyGen in Scotland. These hydrokinetic methods face high capital costs and environmental integration challenges, limiting commercial viability despite theoretical potentials exceeding thousands of terawatt-hours annually.[82][83][84] Emerging concepts like ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), which exploits temperature gradients between surface and deep waters, and salinity gradient systems remain experimental, with no significant grid-scale deployments as of 2025 due to efficiency and infrastructural hurdles. Overall, while hydrocarbons provide reliable baseload energy from marine sources, the shift toward renewables hinges on technological maturation and policy support, with offshore wind poised for terawatt-scale growth by mid-century under optimistic scenarios.[85][86]Water and Chemical Resources
Seawater desalination harnesses ocean water as a vast reservoir to produce fresh water, supplementing limited terrestrial supplies in water-stressed regions. The process primarily employs reverse osmosis or thermal methods to separate salts, with global capacity reaching approximately 142 million cubic meters per day by 2023, predominantly from seawater intake.[87] This extraction supports potable water needs in coastal areas, such as the Middle East, where desalination accounts for over 70% of municipal supply in countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.[88] The resulting brine, hypersaline effluent, concentrates dissolved minerals, enabling secondary recovery of chemicals that would otherwise be discarded.[89] Chemical resources from seawater encompass dissolved salts and elements, with sodium chloride (common salt) extracted via solar evaporation in shallow coastal ponds, a technique yielding millions of tons annually in salt-producing regions like the Dead Sea and Australia's solar salt fields. Magnesium, the third most abundant element in seawater after sodium and chloride, is commercially recovered as magnesium hydroxide by precipitating it from seawater treated with calcined dolomite or lime, followed by filtration and calcination; production persists in facilities in China, Japan, Ireland, and the United States, contributing to global magnesium supply for alloys and compounds.[90] Bromine, concentrated in seawater bromide ions, is liberated through chlorination or electrolysis and steam-distilled for use in flame retardants and pharmaceuticals, with historical extraction scaling up during World War II to meet industrial demands.[91] Emerging methods target trace critical minerals in seawater and desalination brine, including lithium, uranium, and rare earth elements, using selective adsorbents or electrochemical processes powered by renewables. For instance, polymer-based sorbents have demonstrated potential for cobalt, lithium, and uranium recovery, though challenges in selectivity and cost limit current scalability.[92] Brine from desalination plants offers higher concentrations, facilitating extraction of magnesium, lithium, and gallium via precipitation or ion exchange, as explored in recent U.S. government assessments.[93] These approaches leverage seawater's inexhaustible volume—estimated to hold over 5 x 10^15 tons of magnesium alone—but require energy-efficient innovations to compete with terrestrial mining.[94]Economic Importance
Global Market Value
The global market value of marine biological resources derives primarily from capture fisheries and aquaculture, with total first-sale value estimated at USD 452 billion in 2022, of which capture fisheries contributed USD 156 billion and aquaculture USD 296 billion.[95] This figure reflects producer-level prices at the point of initial sale and excludes downstream processing, trade, or retail values, which amplify economic contributions through global supply chains.[42] Aquaculture's rising share, driven by expanded production of species like finfish and crustaceans in Asia, has outpaced wild capture since 2022, underscoring a shift toward farmed marine protein amid stagnant or declining wild stocks in many regions.[96] Marine non-biological resources, particularly offshore oil and gas, dominate the extractive value, with the production segment alone valued at USD 750 billion in 2023.[97] This encompasses crude oil and natural gas extracted from seabed reservoirs via platforms and subsea systems, representing approximately 30% of global gas supply and a significant portion of oil output, concentrated in regions like the North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Persian Gulf.[98] Fluctuations in commodity prices, technological advancements in deepwater drilling, and geopolitical factors influence annual valuations, but offshore extraction remains a cornerstone of energy supply security.[99] Marine minerals, including placer deposits of tin, diamonds, and heavy sands, as well as aggregates like sand and gravel, contribute modestly to current market value, with total marine mining estimated at around USD 35 billion in recent years, predominantly from shallow-water operations.[100] Deep-seabed polymetallic nodules and crusts hold untapped potential valued in trillions for critical minerals like cobalt and nickel, but commercial extraction remains nascent due to technological, regulatory, and environmental barriers.[101] Aggregated across sectors, extractive marine resources thus exceed USD 1.2 trillion in annual value, though precise totals vary with market conditions and exclude ancillary services or ecosystem-derived benefits like desalination.[102]| Sector | Key Value Metric | Amount (USD) | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capture Fisheries & Aquaculture | First-sale value | 452 billion | 2022 | FAO SOFIA[95] |
| Offshore Oil & Gas | Production segment value | 750 billion | 2023 | Market Research Future[97] |
| Marine Minerals | Total mining value | ~35 billion | ~2018 | UNU-WIDER[100] |