A call for comparable measurements of underwater radiated noise related to vessel speed reduction programs

2025/08/01 by Leila Hatch, Megan F. McKenna, Rianna E. Burnham +13 · 1 voice
Environmental Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Marine animal studies overview #Underwater Acoustics Research #Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior

paper · doi:10.1121/10.0038636

openalex publication_date 2025/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/16

Abstract

Marine vessels are mandated or requested to reduce speed to meet operational, economic, and conservation goals. Vessel speed reduction (VSR) is a key strategy in global efforts to reduce ocean noise. Many regional VSR programs incorporate underwater acoustic monitoring to assess reductions in underwater radiated noise (URN) from vessels. Drawing from North American VSR programs, approaches to measuring URN reduction are assessed and progress toward robust metrics, scalable methods, and integrative measures are documented. Improved alignment across programs is recommended across programs to achieve measurement comparability to advance VSR evaluation and contribute to global underwater noise reduction and sustainable shipping goals.

Discussions

• JASA-EL PERSPECTIVE Marine vessels are mandated or requested to reduce speed to meet operational, economic, and conservation goals. This work calls for improved alignment across programs to achieve m [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]

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