Anthropogenic noise is considered an acoustic pollutant, and in recent years, noise from human activities such as shipping, seismic surveys, seabed drilling, and sonar has increased significantly in the Irish marine environment. Impacts on marine biota range from death due to physical injury and auditory damage, to behavioural and habitat use changes. Sound waves travel very quickly in water and effects of noise on marine mammals have been detected up to tens of kilometres from noise sources.

The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) aims at achieving or maintaining Good Environmental Status (GEnS) by 2020, with Descriptor 11 (Noise), taken to mean ?anthropogenic sound that has the potential to cause negative impacts on the marine environment?. This research provides the first verifiable quantification and visualisation of the spatio-temporal distribution of underwater noise to be published for Irish waters necessary for the development of indicators 11.1 and 11.2 specified in the MSFD.

Multiple data sets capturing the key physical environmental variables were combined with information on anthropogenic noise sources such as shipping and seismic surveying in the Quonops© modeling framework. This approach employed advanced sound propagation algorithms and statistical techniques to generate robust estimates of the spatio-temporal distribution of noise levels generated by human activities in Irish waters. Regional validation of the modeled noise fields was performed using field data from an acoustic monitoring array deployed outside Cork Harbour.

The results of the noise propagation modeling showed that continuous sound from ship traffic noise can spread over very large areas, well beyond the standard navigation routes. Acoustic monitoring outside Cork harbor highlighted the importance of duty-cycle and duration of monitoring in capturing the variability in anthropogenic noise. The overall conclusion is that a monitoring programme should employ a short duty cycle but over a longer period. This is an important consideration in the context of capturing the diversity of environmental variables that contribute to the sound-scape for a given location. A low duty cycle is also likely to have low power consumption and volumes of data, making it compatible with real-time data transfer for monitoring purposes.

The noise ?footprints? from seismic activity are very dependent on the location and season of the survey. In general, the footprint from seismic surveys tend to be much larger in deep water where the ambient sound field is relatively quiet. Risks to marine mammals associated with single shots are localized to the source itself, however cumulative risks associated with repetition of shots generates very large areas of potential risk. While the ?bang days? approach is simple to implement, its appropriateness is questionable given that cumulative noise footprints are much larger and more variable than the current grid used to report ?bang-days?. The overlap of ?cumulative noise risk? and marine mammal distribution in Irish waters highlighted the potential for large overlap, with risk of temporary hearing damage encompassing marine mammal hotspots. Therefore, dedicated prediction of noise footprint and biological risks should be mandatory in any EIA for seismic survey activities

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Sutton, G. Jessopp, M.   "Mapping the spatio-temporal distribution of underwater noise in Irish Waters". Associated datasets and digitial information objects connected to this resource are available at: Secure Archive For Environmental Research Data (SAFER) managed by Environmental Protection Agency Ireland https://eparesearch.epa.ie/safer/resource?id=c5afaeb4-2ced-11e3-8c2d-005056ae0019 (Last Accessed: 2024-10-11)

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SAFER-Data Display URL	https://eparesearch.epa.ie/safer/iso19115/display?isoID=3019
Resource Keywords	MSFD, Descriptor 11, Noise, propagation, Quonops
EPA/ERTDI/STRIVE Project Code	2011-W-MS-7
EPA/ERTDI/STRIVE Project Theme	Water Quality
Resource Availability:	Public-Open
Limitations on the use of this Resource
Number of Attached Files (Publicly and Openly Available for Download):	4
Project Start Date	Wednesday 1st February 2012 (01-02-2012)
Earliest Recorded Date within any attached datasets or digital objects	Wednesday 1st February 2012 (01-02-2012)
Most Recent Recorded Date within any attached datasets or digital objects	Tuesday 1st October 2013 (01-10-2013)
Published on SAFER	Friday 4th October 2013 (04-10-2013)
Date of Last Edit	Friday 4th July 2014 at 13:42:38 (04-07-2014)
Datasets or Files Updated On	Wednesday 26th February 2014 at 10:35:33 (26-02-2014)

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Description of Geographical Characteristics of This Project or Dataset
Marine waters including Irish Exclusive Economic Zone and Designated Irish continental shelf area. Specific calibration data collected usiing hydrophones deployed outside Cork harbor, south coast of Ireland.

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