UACE2017 Proceedings: Long-term variation of the frequency domain background noise in a shallow water area in the Mediterranean Sea

Session:
Underwater Noise - Modelling and Measurements
Paper:
Long-term variation of the frequency domain background noise in a shallow water area in the Mediterranean Sea
Author(s):
Francisco Javier Rodrigo-Saura, Antonio Sanchez-Garcia, Esther Moya-Rivas
Abstract:
The shallow water area is characterized by\nconcentrating a high level of human activity\nin a wide range of fields as fishing, tourism,\nsailing or renewable energy generation. This\narea characterizes also by a complex and\nvariable acoustic propagation. All these\nfactors make clearly recommendable to\nperform specific studies aimed to analyze\nthe evolution of the acoustic signals during\nlong-term time intervals. On this basis, this\nstudy focused to show the underwater\nbackground noise variation in the frequency\ndomain using a bank of third-of-octave\nfilters both daily and throughout the annual\nseasons. It has been elaborated from\nenvironmental acoustic noise\nmeasurements that took place in the\nMediterranean Sea, in a shallow water area\nclose to the Cartagena Harbour. The study\ncenters especially in the analysis of the\nevolution of the parameters defined for\nDescriptor 11 of the Marine Strategy\nFramework Directive (MSFD). The results of\nthe study show a great variability of\nfrequencies and levels mainly associated\nwith the human activity in the area.
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