Recreational vessels without Automatic Identification System (AIS) dominate anthropogenic noise contributions to a shallow water soundscape.

ABSTRACT: Recreational boating is an increasing activity in coastal areas and its spatiotemporal overlap with key habitats of marine species pose a risk for negative noise impacts. Yet, recreational vessels are currently unaccounted for in vessel noise models using Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. Here we conduct a case study investigating noise contributions from vessels with and without AIS (non-AIS) in a shallow coastal area within the Inner Danish waters. By tracking vessels with theodolite and AIS, while recording ambient noise levels, we find that non-AIS vessels have a higher occurrence (83%) than AIS vessels, and that motorised recreational vessels can elevate third-octave band noise centred at 0.125, 2 and 16 kHz by 47-51 dB. Accordingly, these vessels dominated the soundscape in

SUBMITTER: Hermannsen L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6820791 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature