2025_programme: Long-term measurements of ambient sounds in Cambridge Bay (Canada), 2015–2024 – Implications for extending the MSFD to Arctic waters

• Day: June 17, Tuesday
    Location / Time: C. THALIA at 11:20-11:40
• Last minutes changes: -
• Session: 22. Underwater noise in the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive: implementation, monitoring, assessment and measures
  Organiser(s): Peter Sigray, Aristides Prospathopoulos, Emmanuel Skarsoulis
  Chairperson(s): Aristides Prospathopoulos, Emmanuel Skarsoulis
• Lecture: Long-term measurements of ambient sounds in Cambridge Bay (Canada), 2015–2024 – Implications for extending the MSFD to Arctic waters [Invited]
  Paper ID: 2151
  Author(s): Philippe BLONDEL, Rhys BELCHER, Dylan COOPER
  Presenter: Philippe Blondel
  Abstract: Climate change is amplified in the Arctic, enabling increased access by ships and development of other activities. Future guidelines need to combine knowledge of local baselines with indications of how best to measure the impact of anthropogenic activities. The EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive and Descriptor is the most complete, strongly inspiring emerging guidelines in other countries. Its primary descriptor D11C2 concerns the extents and levels of continuous low-frequency sounds and it makes extensive use of “shipping bands”, third-octave bands centred on 63 Hz and 125 Hz. To address the lack of measurements, models often make use of ship tracks recorded by their Automatic Identification Systems (AIS). However, not all ships in the Arctic will be large enough, or compliant enough, to use AIS, and winter ice cover also allows human activities other than shipping. Here, we use sound measurements by Ocean Networks Canada in Cambridge Bay (Nunavut, Canada) between 2015 and 2024, focusing on the months of May (full ice cover, no shipping) and August (little to no ice, shipping activity). We show impacts beyond the “shipping bands”. Baseline soundscapes vary with ice cover and AIS underestimates impactful activities of all types. We show that the “shipping bands” should include frequencies up to several kHz, and that similarly loud, long-duration sounds also occur in winter. We show these sounds include those of snowmobiles and low-flying aircraft, and that smaller vessels also contribute to the soundscapes. Our results show that future guidelines will need adapting to the Arctic environments to fully measure the range of human impacts. This is particularly important because of the development of Arctic shipping routes and increasing human presence, from resource exploration to tourism, amplified by current plans for the expansion of mining, drilling and other geostrategic pressures.
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• Corresponding author: Dr Philippe BLONDEL
  Affiliation: University of Bath
  Country: United Kingdom