Monitoring Programme for the Maasvlakte 2, Part III - The Effects of Underwater Sound

The Port of Rotterdam is expanding to meet the growing demand to accommodate large cargo vessels. The construction of Maasvlakte 2 (MV2) started in September 2008. One of the licensing conditions is the monitoring of the underwater sound produced during its construction, with an emphasis on the establishment of acoustic source levels of the...

Assessing the Impact of Underwater Clearance of Unexploded Ordnance on Harbour Porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) in the Southern North Sea

(UXO) are still present in the North Sea. UXO are frequently accidentally encountered by fishermen and dredging vessels. Out of concern for human safety and to avoid damage to equipment and infrastructure from uncontrolled explosions, most reported UXO found in the Dutch Continental Shelf (DCS) are detonated in a controlled way. These underwater...

Temporary hearing threshold shift in a harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) after exposure to multiple airgun sounds

In seismic surveys, reflected sounds from airguns are used under water to detect gas and oil below the sea floor. The airguns produce broadband high-amplitude impulsive sounds, which may cause temporary or permanent threshold shifts (TTS or PTS) in cetaceans. The magnitude of the threshold shifts and the hearing frequencies at which they occur...

Population-level consequences of seismic surveys on fishes An interdisciplinary challenge

Application of kurtosis to underwater sound

Regulations for underwater anthropogenic noise are typically formulated in terms of peak sound pressure, root-mean-square sound pressure, and (weighted or unweighted) sound exposure. Sound effect studies on humans and other terrestrial mammals suggest that in addition to these metrics, the impulsiveness of sound (often quantified by its kurtosis...