Drivers of activities producing underwater noise
Underwater noise is generated by multiple human activities in the North-East Atlantic, including offshore energy production from oil, gas and offshore wind; military activities; detonation of unexploded ordnance such as mines or munitions; shipping, fishing vessels and recreational boating; research activities; aggregates extraction; and aquaculture.
These activities are affected by many social and economic drivers (Society’s need for food; Society’s need for health and well-being; Society’s need for education; as well as underlying influences such as economic growth, globalisation, issues of energy security, issues of national security and technological innovation. For example, factors affecting international trade influence the pressure from shipping. Recent reviews have generally anticipated growth in global volumes of shipping in the short and longer terms, but with uncertainties about the extent of that growth and how it might be affected by risks to trade such as slower overall economic growth, trade tensions, shifts towards more regionalised trade flows, economic transitions, supply side disruptions, climate-change related impacts, and the impact of Covid-19 (see, for example, UNCTAD, 2021).
Underwater noise is generated by offshore energy production activities. © Shutterstock
Environmental policies (Society’s needs and appreciation of nature and biodiversity; Society’s need to mitigate the effects of Climate Change; Society’s need to adapt to the effects of climate change) promoting low-carbon energy, combined with technological innovation, are driving major expansion in offshore wind energy, with consequent increases in impulsive noise from construction of wind turbine foundations and on-site removal of unexploded ordnance, as well as operational noise from wind farms, including from service vessels. Carbon sequestering technologies such as storage of CO2 in exploited oil and gas deposits, and associated seismic surveys for characterisation and monitoring of storage sites, could also increase noise.
Economic demand for resources (Society’s need for stable economies; Society’s need for materials) may also lead to development of new activities with the potential to generate noise, such as deep-sea mining for minerals or an expansion in aggregates extraction to supply increased construction demand.
Greater levels of environmental awareness (Society’s needs and appreciation of nature; Society’s need for health and well-being) may also influence the willingness of governments and businesses to implement measures to reduce environmental impacts, including noise.
UNCTAD (2021). Review of Maritime Transport 2021. Available at: https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/rmt2021_en_0.pdf