22 Years Later: Evaluating Glover & Smith’s 2003 Predictions of the 2025 Deep-Sea Ecosystem

Kalyan Rao

Earth’s deep-sea ecosystem remains one of the least explored and understood ecosystems on the planet. Human interest in the resources available in the deep-sea must be balanced with potential harm to the deep-sea ecosystem. Accurately predicting the effect on human impact on the deep-sea floor can help guide policies and actions today. This research evaluates prior predictions of human impact on the deep-sea floor ecosystem to aid in more accurate predictions in the future. In 2003, Glover & Smith published the frequently cited “The deep-sea floor ecosystem: current status and prospects of anthropogenic change by the year 2025” that made 15 predictions about the state of the deep-sea in 2025. In this paper we now examine their predictions for 2025 and assess the accuracy of each prediction. We classify each of the predictions as either accurate, partially accurate, or inaccurate. Using current studies and evaluations of the deep-sea, alongside news sources detailing deep-sea progress, we compare the state of the ocean today with Glover & Smith’s predictions to test their accuracy. 7 of their predictions proved to be accurate, 4 were partially accurate, and 4 more were inaccurate. We identified common themes of both accurate and inaccurate predictions to guide future predictions. Predictions regarding technological development were largely inaccurate while predictions concerning sources of damage to ecosystems were largely accurate.