Assessing the Underwater Ship Noise Levels in the North Tyrrhenian Sea

Adv Exp Med Biol. 2016:875:943-9. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-2981-8_116.

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to assess the anthropic underwater noise caused by ships within the Cetacean Sanctuary, a wide area in the North Tyrrhenian Sea. Noise from low-frequency continuous sounds has been investigated within the 1/3-octave bands centered at 63 and 125 Hz. All the information about noise sources and sound attenuation have been organized in a database; a tool automatically extracts useful information from it and feeds a ray-tracing model to estimate noise levels. The results show average levels generally over the 100 dB re 1 μPa value.

Keywords: Cetacean Sanctuary; Noise vessel; Ray tracing.

MeSH terms

  • Models, Theoretical
  • Noise*
  • Oceans and Seas*
  • Seawater*
  • Ships*
  • Sound Spectrography