Making Marine Noise Pollution Impacts Heard: The Case of Cetaceans in the North Sea within Life Cycle Impact Assessment
Oceans represent more than 95% of the world’s biosphere and are among the richest sources of biodiversity on Earth. However, human activities such as shipping and construction of marine infrastructure pose a threat to the quality of marine ecosystems. Due to the dependence of most marine animals on...
Published in: | Sustainability |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
MDPI AG
2017
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071138 https://doaj.org/article/4b5917c248334dfe98a66607ded46ab2 |
id |
fttriple:oai:gotriple.eu:oai:doaj.org/article:4b5917c248334dfe98a66607ded46ab2 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
fttriple:oai:gotriple.eu:oai:doaj.org/article:4b5917c248334dfe98a66607ded46ab2 2023-05-15T16:33:30+02:00 Making Marine Noise Pollution Impacts Heard: The Case of Cetaceans in the North Sea within Life Cycle Impact Assessment Heleen Middel Francesca Verones 2017-06-01 https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071138 https://doaj.org/article/4b5917c248334dfe98a66607ded46ab2 en eng MDPI AG 2071-1050 doi:10.3390/su9071138 https://doaj.org/article/4b5917c248334dfe98a66607ded46ab2 undefined Sustainability, Vol 9, Iss 7, p 1138 (2017) noise pollution life cycle assessment impact assessment marine ecosystem North Sea pile-driving harbour porpoise envir geo Journal Article https://vocabularies.coar-repositories.org/resource_types/c_6501/ 2017 fttriple https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071138 2023-01-22T18:10:25Z Oceans represent more than 95% of the world’s biosphere and are among the richest sources of biodiversity on Earth. However, human activities such as shipping and construction of marine infrastructure pose a threat to the quality of marine ecosystems. Due to the dependence of most marine animals on sound for their communication, foraging, protection, and ultimately their survival, the effects of noise pollution from human activities are of growing concern. Life cycle assessment (LCA) can play a role in the understanding of how potential environmental impacts are related to industrial processes. However, noise pollution impacts on marine ecosystems have not yet been taken into account. This paper presents a first approach for the integration of noise impacts on marine ecosystems into the LCA framework by developing characterization factors (CF) for the North Sea. Noise pollution triggers a large variety of impact pathways, but as a starting point and proof-of-concept we assessed impacts on the avoidance behaviour of cetaceans due to pile-driving during the construction of offshore windfarms in the North Sea. Our approach regards the impact of avoidance behaviour as a temporary loss of habitat, and assumes a temporary loss of all individuals within that habitat from the total regional population. This was verified with an existing model that assessed the population-level effect of noise pollution on harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) in the North Sea. We expanded our CF to also include other cetacean species and tested it in a case study of the construction of an offshore windfarm (Prinses Amalia wind park). The total impact of noise pollution was in the same order of magnitude as impacts on other ecosystems from freshwater eutrophication, freshwater ecotoxicity, terrestrial acidification, and terrestrial ecotoxicity. Although there are still many improvements to be made to this approach, it provides a basis for the implementation of noise pollution impacts in an LCA framework, and has the potential to be ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Harbour porpoise Phocoena phocoena Unknown Sustainability 9 7 1138 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Unknown |
op_collection_id |
fttriple |
language |
English |
topic |
noise pollution life cycle assessment impact assessment marine ecosystem North Sea pile-driving harbour porpoise envir geo |
spellingShingle |
noise pollution life cycle assessment impact assessment marine ecosystem North Sea pile-driving harbour porpoise envir geo Heleen Middel Francesca Verones Making Marine Noise Pollution Impacts Heard: The Case of Cetaceans in the North Sea within Life Cycle Impact Assessment |
topic_facet |
noise pollution life cycle assessment impact assessment marine ecosystem North Sea pile-driving harbour porpoise envir geo |
description |
Oceans represent more than 95% of the world’s biosphere and are among the richest sources of biodiversity on Earth. However, human activities such as shipping and construction of marine infrastructure pose a threat to the quality of marine ecosystems. Due to the dependence of most marine animals on sound for their communication, foraging, protection, and ultimately their survival, the effects of noise pollution from human activities are of growing concern. Life cycle assessment (LCA) can play a role in the understanding of how potential environmental impacts are related to industrial processes. However, noise pollution impacts on marine ecosystems have not yet been taken into account. This paper presents a first approach for the integration of noise impacts on marine ecosystems into the LCA framework by developing characterization factors (CF) for the North Sea. Noise pollution triggers a large variety of impact pathways, but as a starting point and proof-of-concept we assessed impacts on the avoidance behaviour of cetaceans due to pile-driving during the construction of offshore windfarms in the North Sea. Our approach regards the impact of avoidance behaviour as a temporary loss of habitat, and assumes a temporary loss of all individuals within that habitat from the total regional population. This was verified with an existing model that assessed the population-level effect of noise pollution on harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) in the North Sea. We expanded our CF to also include other cetacean species and tested it in a case study of the construction of an offshore windfarm (Prinses Amalia wind park). The total impact of noise pollution was in the same order of magnitude as impacts on other ecosystems from freshwater eutrophication, freshwater ecotoxicity, terrestrial acidification, and terrestrial ecotoxicity. Although there are still many improvements to be made to this approach, it provides a basis for the implementation of noise pollution impacts in an LCA framework, and has the potential to be ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Heleen Middel Francesca Verones |
author_facet |
Heleen Middel Francesca Verones |
author_sort |
Heleen Middel |
title |
Making Marine Noise Pollution Impacts Heard: The Case of Cetaceans in the North Sea within Life Cycle Impact Assessment |
title_short |
Making Marine Noise Pollution Impacts Heard: The Case of Cetaceans in the North Sea within Life Cycle Impact Assessment |
title_full |
Making Marine Noise Pollution Impacts Heard: The Case of Cetaceans in the North Sea within Life Cycle Impact Assessment |
title_fullStr |
Making Marine Noise Pollution Impacts Heard: The Case of Cetaceans in the North Sea within Life Cycle Impact Assessment |
title_full_unstemmed |
Making Marine Noise Pollution Impacts Heard: The Case of Cetaceans in the North Sea within Life Cycle Impact Assessment |
title_sort |
making marine noise pollution impacts heard: the case of cetaceans in the north sea within life cycle impact assessment |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071138 https://doaj.org/article/4b5917c248334dfe98a66607ded46ab2 |
genre |
Harbour porpoise Phocoena phocoena |
genre_facet |
Harbour porpoise Phocoena phocoena |
op_source |
Sustainability, Vol 9, Iss 7, p 1138 (2017) |
op_relation |
2071-1050 doi:10.3390/su9071138 https://doaj.org/article/4b5917c248334dfe98a66607ded46ab2 |
op_rights |
undefined |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071138 |
container_title |
Sustainability |
container_volume |
9 |
container_issue |
7 |
container_start_page |
1138 |
_version_ |
1766023187016974336 |