Abstract

Underwater noise pollution from ships is a chronic, global stressor impacting a wide range of marine species. Ambient ocean noise levels nearly doubled each decade from 1963-2007 in low-frequency bands attributed to shipping, inspiring a pledge from the International Maritime Organization to reduce ship noise and a call from the International Whaling Commission for member nations to halve ship noise within a decade. Our analysis of data from 1,582 ships reveals that half of the total power radiated by a modern fleet comes from just 15% of the ships, namely those with source levels above 179 dB re 1 μPa @ 1 m. We present a range of management options for reducing ship noise efficiently, including incentive-based programs, without necessarily regulating the entire fleet.

Details

Title
A key to quieter seas: half of ship noise comes from 15% of the fleet
Author
Veirs, Scott; Veirs, Val; Williams, Rob; Jasny, Michael; Wood, Jason
Publication year
2018
Publication date
Feb 15, 2018
Publisher
PeerJ, Inc.
e-ISSN
21679843
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26525v1
ProQuest document ID
2002378913
Copyright
© 2018 Veirs et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.