Development of a model to assess masking potential for marine mammals by the use of air guns in Antarctic waters
We estimated the long-range effects of air gun array noise on marine mammal communication ranges in the Southern Ocean. Air gun impulses are subject to significant distortion during propagation, potentially resulting in a quasi- continuous sound. Propagation modeling to estimate the received wavefor...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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Format: | Book Part |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Springer
2016
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/development-of-a-model-to-assess-masking-potential-for-marine-mam https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2981-8_156 |
Summary: | We estimated the long-range effects of air gun array noise on marine mammal communication ranges in the Southern Ocean. Air gun impulses are subject to significant distortion during propagation, potentially resulting in a quasi- continuous sound. Propagation modeling to estimate the received waveform was conducted. A leaky integrator was used as a hearing model to assess communication masking in three species due to intermittent/continuous air gun sounds. Air gun noise is most probably changing from impulse to continuous noise between 1,000 and 2,000 km from the source, leading to a reduced communication range for, e.g., blue and fin whales up to 2,000 km from the source. |
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