New Insights into the Design and Application of a Passive Acoustic Monitoring System for the Assessment of the Good Environmental Status in Spanish Marine Waters

[EN] Passive acoustic monitoring systems allow for non-invasive monitoring of underwater species and anthropogenic noise. One of these systems has been developed keeping in mind the need to create a user-friendly tool to obtain the ambient noise indicators, while at the same time providing a powerful tool for marine scientists and biologists to progress in studying the effect of human activities on species and ecosystems. The device is based on a low-power processor with ad-hoc electronics, ensuring that the system has efficient energy management, and that the storage capacity is large enough to allow deployments for long periods. An application is presented using data from an acoustic campaign done in 2018 at El Gorguel (Cartagena, Spain). The results show a good agreement between theoretical maps created using AIS data and the ambient noise level indicators measured in the frequency bands of 63 Hz and 125 Hz specified in the directive 11 of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive. Using a 2D representation, these ambient noise indicators have enabled repetitive events and daily variations in boat traffic to be identified. The ship noise registered can also be used to track ships by using the acoustic signatures of the engine propellers¿ noise.Lara Martínez, G.; Miralles Ricós, R.; Bou-Cabo, M.; Esteban, JA.; Espinosa Roselló, V. (2020). New Insights into the Design and Application of a Passive Acoustic Monitoring System for the Assessment of the Good Environmental Status in Spanish Marine Waters. Sensors. 20(18):1-12. https://doi.org/10.3390/s201853531122018Lara, G., Bou-Cabo, M., Esteban, J. A., Espinosa, V., & Miralles, R. (2019). Design and Application of a Passive Acoustic Monitoring System in the Spanish Implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. Proceedings of 6th International Electronic Conference on Sensors and Applications. doi:10.3390/ecsa-6-06568SAMARUC Webhttp://samaruc.webs.upv.esExplora (Patents and Software) UPV Webhttps://aplicat.upv.es/exploraupv/ficha-tecnologia/patente_software/15065?busqueda=R-16202-2012Beghi, M. G. (Ed.). (2013). Modeling and Measurement Methods for Acoustic Waves and for Acoustic Microdevices. doi:10.5772/2581Oceans Physics at Your Fingertipshttps://www.emodnet-physics.eu/Map/Gridded Bathymetric Datahttps://www.gebco.net/data_and_products/gridded_bathymetry_data/Mackenzie, K. V. (1981). Nine‐term equation for sound speed in the oceans. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 70(3), 807-812. doi:10.1121/1.386920Ross, D., & Kuperman, W. A. (1989). Mechanics of Underwater Noise. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 86(4), 1626-1626. doi:10.1121/1.398685Gervaise, C., Kinda, B. G., Bonnel, J., Stéphan, Y., & Vallez, S. (2012). Passive geoacoustic inversion with a single hydrophone using broadband ship noise. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 131(3), 1999-2010. doi:10.1121/1.3672688Crocker, S. E., Nielsen, P. L., Miller, J. H., & Siderius, M. (2014). Geoacoustic inversion of ship radiated noise in shallow water using data from a single hydrophone. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 136(5), EL362-EL368. doi:10.1121/1.4898739Li, H., Yang, K., Duan, R., & Lei, Z. (2017). Joint Estimation of Source Range and Depth Using a Bottom-Deployed Vertical Line Array in Deep Water. Sensors, 17(6), 1315. doi:10.3390/s17061315Tong, J., Hu, Y.-H., Bao, M., & Xie, W. (2013). Target tracking using acoustic signatures of light-weight aircraft propeller noise. 2013 IEEE China Summit and International Conference on Signal and Information Processing. doi:10.1109/chinasip.2013.6625333Lo, K. W., Perry, S. W., & Ferguson, B. G. (2002). Aircraft flight parameter estimation using acoustical Lloyd’s mirror effect. IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, 38(1), 137-151. doi:10.1109/7.993235Miralles, R., Lara, G., Gosalbez, J., Bosch, I., & León, A. (2019). Improved visualization of large temporal series for the evaluation of good environmental status. Applied Acoustics, 148, 55-61. doi:10.1016/j.apacoust.2018.12.00