Averaging underwater noise levels for environmental assessment of shipping

Nathan D. Merchant; Philippe Blondel; D. Tom Dakin; John Dorocicz

doi:10.1121/1.4754429

Averaging underwater noise levels for environmental assessment of shipping

Nathan D. Merchant
, Philippe Blondel
, D. Tom Dakin
, John Dorocicz

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

80 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Rising underwater noise levels from shipping have raised concerns regarding chronic impacts to marine fauna. However, there is a lack of consensus over how to average local shipping noise levels for environmental impact assessment. This paper addresses this issue using 110 days of continuous data recorded in the Strait of Georgia, Canada. Probability densities of ∼107 1-s samples in selected 1/3 octave bands were approximately stationary across one-month subsamples. Median and mode levels varied with averaging time. Mean sound pressure levels averaged in linear space, though susceptible to strong bias from outliers, are most relevant to cumulative impact assessment metrics.

Original language	English
Journal	Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Volume	132
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4754429
Publication status	Published - 19 Sept 2012

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 14 Life Below Water

Access to Document

10.1121/1.4754429

Cite this

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