Safeguarding the Seabed: Rear Admiral Nuno de Noronha Bragança of the Atlantic Centre
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The Atlantic Centre is focused on one of today’s most pressing challenges: safeguarding the seabed, which now carries the data, energy, and resources that modern societies depend on.
Yet risks are growing. Natural hazards, human activity, and deliberate threats mean the fight to protect critical infrastructure is in full force - demanding greater resilience, innovation, and cooperation.
I had the pleasure of sitting down with Rear Admiral Nuno de Noronha Bragança, who shared his expert insights into these challenges. Using decades of experience from his impressive career and insights from the Atlantic Centre, Rear Admiral Nuno highlighted the need for collective action in securing the underwater domain.
Who is Rear Admiratl Nuno de Noronha Bragança?
Rear Admiral Nuno de Noronha Bragança is the Coordinator of the Atlantic Centre. He leads dialogue, cooperation, and capacity-building initiatives across Atlantic nations. A graduate of the Portuguese Naval School, he has held senior naval commands and advisory roles, including Military Advisor to the Portuguese Parliament and Chief of Cabinet to the Admiral Chief of Navy Staff, with extensive experience in maritime security operations.
1. How would you describe the biggest threats to critical underwater infrastructure today, and how have these threats changed in recent years?
I always like to distinguish between risks and threats. For a long time, what we’ve mainly seen are risks, rather than deliberate attempts to cause harm. These risks include incidents such as damage caused by fishing activity, anchoring, or other natural causes affecting seabed infrastructure.
I also like to frame this within the broader context of development and sustainable growth. In the past, conflicts often revolved around resources such as oil, fresh water, and minerals. Over time, because of geographic factors, much of this activity has shifted to the sea. For example, investment in energy infrastructure like wind farms in the North Sea is possible because the average depth there is only around 110 metres – shallow enough to make construction relatively straightforward. In the Baltic Sea, the average depth is even shallower, about 63 metres, which makes seabed access quite manageable.
In contrast, Portugal’s average territorial water depth is around 1,200 metres, which creates a very different type of challenge. The risks of anchoring or fishing still exist, but the nature of these risks changes significantly depending on geography.
On top of this, we must remember that society has entered a new industrial era where data has become one of the most critical resources. Digitalisation and innovation have transformed the way we operate, and while it’s relatively straightforward to innovate with technology, it’s much harder to innovate how people think. This gap is important because technology often advances faster than the legal frameworks that govern it. For example, at a maritime security conference in Abuja in 2019, we discussed using new technologies to gather evidence against illicit activity at sea. The problem was that prosecutors could not always rely on this evidence, as the technology was not yet recognised within legal systems.
So, while energy remains a critical resource - and will continue to be - society is now equally dependent on data. Both are largely carried through seabed infrastructure such as energy pipelines and submarine cables. These risks will continue to grow as infrastructure expands. For instance, we see this with major projects like the cable system linking West African countries from Nigeria to Morocco, and projects like GAZODUC, which was originally planned to run on land but is now shifting to subsea routes due to security concerns. These developments create both opportunities and new challenges.
In terms of threats, today we are seeing much greater conflict globally than a decade ago, with state and non-state actors increasingly present in contested areas. Technology, while transformative, also poses risks. Advanced capabilities that were once restricted to major powers are now accessible to smaller actors, including malicious ones, thanks to lower costs and widespread availability. This proliferation creates new challenges, particularly in areas such as cybersecurity.
In summary, traditional risks like fishing and anchoring remain, but the growth of subsea infrastructure, global conflict, and the spread of advanced technology mean that threats to underwater infrastructure are evolving rapidly. Addressing them requires improved cooperation, greater maritime - and underwater - domain awareness, and an emphasis on resilience.
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