PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Maritime traffic, for trade and tourism, has greatly developed over the past 100 years leading to a continuous and tremendous augmentation of underwater noise. Over the last 6 decades, background noise levels have doubled every decade, mainly due to shipping, with an increase of 20 dB in 50 years in some areas, corresponding to a 100-fold increase in acoustic pressure.
Such noise levels negatively affect marine life, both at the level of individuals but also at the level of population dynamics. The effects of underwater noise are not fully understood for all species and are multiple and complex. Animals could be driven out of important feeding or breeding areas, have a reduced ability to detect food or, if hearing is damaged, have limited communication capacities impacting reproductive behaviour. Such effects, as opposed to other types of pollution, can be widespread, since sound can travel over dozens of kilometres under water.
The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) aimed to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) of the EU's marine waters by 2020 and to protect the resource base upon which marine-related economic and social activities depend. Descriptor 11 of the GES (Introduction of energy, including underwater noise, is at levels that do not adversely affect the marine environment) defines 2 indicators to measure noise.
The introduction of the MSFD led to a number of initiatives including the FP7 AQUO project, led by Naval Group, which delivered a series of technical, operational and regulatory recommendations to reduce individual vessel noise and the cumulative resultant of noise from the world fleet.
OBJECTIVES
The LIFE-PIAQUO project objectives were to develop and test different tools to reduce underwater noise pollution and their impacts on Mediterranean aquatic biodiversity. It was structured around 5 goals, the first 2 target the shipping industry while the other 3 concern public stakeholders such as governments, harbours and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs):
- optimisation of propellers to limit cavitation, the main origin of ship underwater radiated noise (URN)
- test on-board of a large ferry an URN measuring system, for the vessel captain to be aware of the URN level on a real-time basis and, for instance, be able to adapt the speed of the vessel in vulnerable areas
- support harbour authorities and MPA managers to induce virtuous practices - the objective was to provide a map of emission levels in a wide area, thanks to buoys with sensors, which will be used by authorities to test incentives for ship owners to reduce underwater noise
- the adaptation of the maritime traffic according to the real-time state of marine ecosystems - in 2 MPAs and the Pelagos sanctuary, soniferous species, most sensitive to noise pollution, will be located and their vital functions (breeding, feeding) monitored, while voluntary mitigation seasonal measures will be implemented by the MPAs and Palagos managers, incentivising vessels to adopt URN reduction practices (ship speed reduction, no-shipping area, etc.)
- establish a broadcasting service to inform vessel captains, ship management offices and public entities on individual impact on the ecosystem and support decision-making to mitigate URN
RESULTS
The project did not achieve its objectives. However, it did successfully accomplish some results as follows:
- Goal 1: the project managed to test an optimised propeller on a small vessel, but was only able to assess its performance on a large ferry through virtual modeling
- Goal 2: the project tested a system for estimating underwater noise in real time on board, which however needs to be developed further to make it more efficient and easier to deploy on board
- Goal 3: the project team conducted measurements via Passive acoustic buoys and gathered data that could potentially lead to the development of mitigation measures, although these measures have not yet been implemented, and further data collection is necessary before concrete mitigation actions can be taken
- Goal 4: the project acquired data to estimate the sensitivity of species to noise caused by ships, but this did not reveal any significant impact, and it has not led to the implementation of any specific measures in the marine protected areas targeted
- Goal 5: the project started to develop 3 services/decision-support tools, based on stakeholders’ feedback but this came very late in the project lifetime, so no stakeholder had yet taken advantage of them at the end of the project
Key external factors, such as the withdrawal of a major shipowner and administrative delays, affected the coherence and timely execution of several actions. Moreover, limited stakeholder uptake, the absence of pilot integration of key tools, and incomplete alignment between planned and actual resource use reduced the overall demonstration value of the project.
The project results are expected to be used in other R&D projects, which might eventually lead to concrete underwater noise reduction in the European seas, which would benefit marine species.
