IEEE logo

Shipping noise predictions from AIS in the Faial-Pico area, Azores archipelago

C. Soares(1), R. Duarte(2) F. Zabel(1), M. Silva(3) and S.M. Jesus(2)
(1) Marsensing Lda. Faro, Portugal.
(2) LARSyS, University of Algarve, 8005-139 Faro, Portugal
(3) IMAR, Okeanos, University of Azores, Horta, Portugal

Comments: download pdf
Ref.: Global OCEANS MTS/IEEE, Singapore (Malaysia), October 2020

Abstract: During the past few years it was observed an increasing awareness related to underwater noise pollution and the impact it may have in biodiversity. Sources of underwater noise may be classified into three categories: environmental (wind, rain, waves, earthquakes, etc), biological (vocalization of marine mammals, etc) and anthropogenic (shipping, offshore construction, seismic surveys, etc). Marine mammals rely on sound to forage, communicate, navigate and perceive their environment. Recent studies indicated that their behaviour and physiology may be affected by anthropogenic ambient noise. The Azores archipelago, lying on the North Atlantic ocean, hosts one of the greatest diversities of cetaceans either permanent or under migration. However this unique biodiversity may be at risk from increasing commercial and recreational vessel traffic (ex.: tankers, containers, ferries, etc). One way to predict the underwater noise resulting from anthropogenic sources, such as ships, is the generation of numerical noise maps. The noise maps are used because it is impossible to measure experimentally the large ocean areas and its' noise variability in time and space. Soares et al. developed a shipping noise prediction tool, based on Automatic Identification System (AIS) data that permits to evaluate underwater noise in a specific region. The objective of the present work is to show preliminary results of shipping noise predictions around the Azorean islands of Pico, Faial and São Jorge through realistic noise maps.



“©1992-2020 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for  advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.”