Marine Mammal Noise Exposure Criteria: Updated Scientific Recommendations for Residual Hearing Effects

Southall, Brandon L.; Finneran, James J.; Reichmuth, Colleen; Nachtigall, Paul E.; Ketten, Darlene R.; Bowles, Ann E.; Ellison, William T.; Nowacek, Douglas P.; Tyack, Peter L.

doi:10.1578/am.45.2.2019.125

Cited by 330 publications

(355 citation statements)

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“…However, due to a lack of evidence to support the transition range approach, the authors removed this approach from the final guidance (National Marine Fisheries Service , Southall et al. ). Nevertheless, they highlight the need to understand how the characteristics of a sound that makes it injurious change under various propagation conditions to develop appropriate thresholds in future.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…, National Marine Fisheries Service , , Southall et al. ). Using this approach, the majority of both the seismic (1,666; 76.9%) and pile driving signals (1,397; 99.6%) that we recorded would be considered impulsive.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…, National Marine Fisheries Service , Southall et al. ). These studies developed a series of weighting curves based on the hearing characteristics of marine mammal species groups and reviewed auditory damage studies to provide exposure criteria for both impulsive and non‐impulsive underwater sounds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, this approach did not appear in the final guidance (National Marine Fisheries Service , Southall et al. ) due to a lack of evidence to identify where this transition occurs. The authors highlight that a better understanding how potentially injurious characteristics of a sound change under various propagation conditions is required to inform the development and application of appropriate thresholds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further, Southall et al. () note that the respective exposure criteria (impulsive or non‐impulsive) should be applied based on signal features likely to be received by animals rather than by signal features at the sound source. Here, we directly address this data gap by describing the acoustic signals recorded in the vicinity of seismic air guns and pile driving and measure how their characteristics change with range from source.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of impulsive noise on marine mammals: investigating range‐dependent risk

Hastie

Merchant

Götz

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

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Concerns exist about the impacts of underwater noise on marine mammals. These include auditory damage, which is a significant risk for marine mammals exposed to impulsive sounds such as explosions, pile‐driving, and seismic air guns. Currently, impact assessments use different risk criteria for impulsive and non‐impulsive sounds (e.g., ships, drilling). However, as impulsive sounds dissipate through the environment, they potentially lose hazardous features (e.g., sudden onset) and become non‐impulsive at some distance from the source. Despite management implications, a lack of data on range‐dependent characteristics currently limits their inclusion in impact assessments. We address this using acoustic recordings of seismic air guns and pile‐driving to quantify range dependency in impulsive characteristics using four criteria: (1) rise time < 25 ms; (2) quotient of peak pressure and pulse duration > 5,000 Pa/s; (3) duration < 1 s; (4) crest factor > 15 dB. We demonstrate that some characteristics changed markedly within ranges of ~10 km, and that the mean probability of exceeding criteria 1 and 2 was <0.5 at ranges >3.5 km. In contrast, the mean probability of exceeding criteria 3 remained >0.5 up to ~37.0 km, and the mean probability of exceeding criteria 4 remained <0.5 throughout the range. These results suggest that a proportion of the recorded signals should be defined as impulsive based on each of the criteria, and that some of the criteria change markedly as a result of propagation. However, the impulsive nature of a sound is likely to be a complex interaction of all these criteria, and many other unrelated parameters such as duty cycle, recovery periods, and sound levels will also strongly affect the risk of hearing damage. We recommend future auditory damage studies and impact assessments explicitly consider the ranges at which sounds may lose some of their potentially hazardous characteristics.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of impulsive noise on marine mammals: investigating range‐dependent risk

Hastie

Merchant

Götz

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

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Balancing risks of injury and disturbance to marine mammals when pile driving at offshore windfarms

Thompson

Graham

Cheney

et al. 2020

Ecol Sol and Evidence

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1. Offshore windfarms require construction procedures that minimize impacts on protected marine mammals. Uncertainty over the efficacy of existing guidelines for mitigating near-field injury when pile-driving recently resulted in the development of alternative measures, which integrated the routine deployment of acoustic deterrent devices (ADD) into engineering installation procedures without prior monitoring by marine mammal observers. 2. We conducted research around the installation of jacket foundations at the UK's first deep-water offshore windfarm to address data gaps identified by regulators when consenting this new approach. Specifically, we aimed to (a) measure the relationship between noise levels and hammer energy to inform assessments of near-field injury zones and (b) assess the efficacy of ADDs to disperse harbour porpoises from these zones. 3. Distance from piling vessel had the biggest influence on received noise levels but, unexpectedly, received levels at any given distance were highest at low hammer energies. Modelling highlighted that this was because noise from pin pile installations was dominated by the strong negative relationship with pile penetration depth with only a weak positive relationship with hammer energy. 4. Acoustic detections of porpoises along a gradient of ADD exposure decreased in the 3-h following a 15-min ADD playback, with a 50% probability of response within 21.7 km. The minimum time to the first porpoise detection after playbacks was > 2 h for sites within 1 km of the playback. 5. Our data suggest that the current regulatory focus on maximum hammer energies needs review, and future assessments of noise exposure should also consider foundation type. Despite higher piling noise levels than predicted, responses to ADD playback suggest mitigation was sufficiently conservative. Conversely, strong responses of porpoises to ADDs resulted in far-field disturbance beyond that required to mitigate injury. We recommend that risks to marine mammals can be further minimized by (1) optimizing ADD source signals and/or deployment schedules to minimize broad-scale This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Baleen Whale Vocalizations

White,

Todd

2023

Noisy Oceans

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Marine Mammal Noise Exposure Criteria: Updated Scientific Recommendations for Residual Hearing Effects

Cited by 330 publications

References 0 publications

Effects of impulsive noise on marine mammals: investigating range‐dependent risk

Effects of impulsive noise on marine mammals: investigating range‐dependent risk

Balancing risks of injury and disturbance to marine mammals when pile driving at offshore windfarms

Baleen Whale Vocalizations

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