A three-dimensional underwater sound propagation model for offshore wind farm noise prediction.

Author Posting. © Acoustical Society of America, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of Acoustical Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 145(5), (2019):EL335-EL340, doi: 10.1121/1.5099560.A three-dimensional underwater sound propagation model with realistic ocean environmental conditions has been created for assessing the impacts of noise from offshore wind farm construction and operation. This model utilizes an existing accurate numerical solution scheme to solve the three-dimensional Helmholtz wave equation, and it is compared and validated with acoustic transmission data between 750 and 1250 Hz collected during the development of the Block Island Wind Farm (BIWF), Rhode Island. The variability of underwater sound propagation conditions has been investigated in the BIWF area on a temporal scale of months and a spatial scale of kilometers. This study suggests that future offshore wind farm developments can exploit the seasonal variability of underwater sound propagation for mitigating noise impact by scheduling wind farm construction during periods of high acoustic transmission loss. Discussions on other applications of soundscape prediction, planning, and management are provided.The authors would like to acknowledge Captain Ken Houlter and First Mate Ian Hanley of the WHOI R/V Tioga. The authors would also like to acknowledge Dr. Steven Crocker from the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, Rhode Island for the design of the tetrahedral hydrophone array. Study concept, oversight, and funding under the Real-time Opportunity for Development Environmental Operations (RODEO) were provided by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Environmental Studies Program, Washington, DC under Contract No. M16PD00025. The Program Manager at BOEM is Dr. Mary Boatman. The prime contractor for this work is HDR, Inc. (Program Manager Anwar Khan).2019-11-0