Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Merchant, Nathan D.
• Pirotta, Enrico
• Barton, Tim R.
• Thompson, Paul M.

Titel

Monitoring ship noise to assess the impact of coastal developments on marine mammals

Ist Teil von

• Marine pollution bulletin, 2014-01, Vol.78 (1-2), p.85-95

Ort / Verlag

Kidlington: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2014

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• •We monitored baseline noise levels at two sites in the inner Moray Firth, Scotland.•Offshore developments may bring increased ship traffic to this marine mammal habitat.•Noise levels and variability differed between the sites due to shipping activity.•Shipping activity was recorded using time-lapse footage and ship-tracking data .•Higher frequency noise monitoring may improve indicators for the EU MSFD. The potential impacts of underwater noise on marine mammals are widely recognised, but uncertainty over variability in baseline noise levels often constrains efforts to manage these impacts. This paper characterises natural and anthropogenic contributors to underwater noise at two sites in the Moray Firth Special Area of Conservation, an important marine mammal habitat that may be exposed to increased shipping activity from proposed offshore energy developments. We aimed to establish a pre-development baseline, and to develop ship noise monitoring methods using Automatic Identification System (AIS) and time-lapse video to record trends in noise levels and shipping activity. Our results detail the noise levels currently experienced by a locally protected bottlenose dolphin population, explore the relationship between broadband sound exposure levels and the indicators proposed in response to the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive, and provide a ship noise assessment toolkit which can be applied in other coastal marine environments.