title: Monitoring ship noise to assess the impact of coastal developments on marine mammals.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK. Electronic address: ndmercha@syr.edu.
authors.forename: Nathan D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Merchant
authors.affiliation: University of Aberdeen, Institute of Biological & Environmental Sciences, Lighthouse Field Station, Cromarty, Ross-shire IV11 8YL, UK.
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pirotta
authors.affiliation: University of Aberdeen, Institute of Biological & Environmental Sciences, Lighthouse Field Station, Cromarty, Ross-shire IV11 8YL, UK.
authors.forename: Tim R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Barton
authors.affiliation: University of Aberdeen, Institute of Biological & Environmental Sciences, Lighthouse Field Station, Cromarty, Ross-shire IV11 8YL, UK.
authors.forename: Paul M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Thompson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D050681:Bottle-Nosed Dolphin / Q000502:physiology*; D017753:Ecosystem; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D009622:Noise; D012767:Ships
keywords: AIS data; Acoustic disturbance; Marine mammals; Renewable energy; Ship noise; Time-lapse