The seas and oceans provide resources for a range of industrial and recreational activities, from commercial shipping to recreational boating, and from resource exploration to wind energy. All these rapidly expanding activities generate sounds, often very loud, that travel long distances through water. The growth of the ocean economy means that human-generated noise is becoming dominant in marine soundscapes worldwide. It has been observed that this can be very harmful to marine life, but the extent of the damage has not been quantified. Scientific knowledge of underwater noise pollution is growing rapidly but remains limited; further research is needed to provide policymakers with essential guidelines for the sustainable exploitation of marine resources. Future noise pollution models will need to include precise information on specific noise sources, the propagation of elastic waves in marine environments, and the impact of noise on individual marine species. SWIM helps us understand how new wind farms could affect toothed whales, depending on their characteristics (such as fixed or floating turbines) and their location. For WP1 milestone 8, several recordings were conducted in the northern Adriatic Sea, in the Gulf of Trieste. During this phase, a series of underwater acoustic data acquisition campaigns was carried out using high-sensitivity hydrophone instrumentation. The primary objective was to establish a baseline to test the operational efficiency of the system and to identify the best configuration and settings for the instrumentation to be applied subsequently in the preparatory survey phase in the Gulf of Taranto, near the wind farm.

The seas and oceans provide resources for a range of industrial and recreational activities, from commercial shipping to recreational boating, and from resource exploration to wind energy. All these rapidly expanding activities generate sounds, often very loud, that travel long distances through water. The growth of the ocean economy means that human-generated noise is becoming dominant in marine soundscapes worldwide. It has been observed that this can be very harmful to marine life, but the extent of the damage has not been quantified. Scientific knowledge of underwater noise pollution is growing rapidly but remains limited; further research is needed to provide policymakers with essential guidelines for the sustainable exploitation of marine resources. Future noise pollution models will need to include precise information on specific noise sources, the propagation of elastic waves in marine environments, and the impact of noise on individual marine species. SWIM helps us understand how new wind farms could affect toothed whales, depending on their characteristics (such as fixed or floating turbines) and their location. The plan for the Recovery and Measurement Survey was to deploy two bottom recorders near the wind turbine blades, specifically at wind turbine number 2 and wind turbine number 6. For wind turbine number 2, the bottom recorder was positioned one metre from the turbine, while for wind turbine number 6, the sensor was placed five metres away. The purpose of measuring at different distances was to empirically detect the dispersion of noise following its propagation.

The seas and oceans provide resources for a range of industrial and recreational activities, from commercial shipping to recreational boating, and from resource exploration to wind energy. All these rapidly expanding activities generate sounds, often very loud, that travel long distances through water. The growth of the ocean economy means that human-generated noise is becoming dominant in marine soundscapes worldwide. It has been observed that this can be very harmful to marine life, but the extent of the damage has not been quantified. Scientific knowledge of underwater noise pollution is growing rapidly but remains limited; further research is needed to provide policymakers with essential guidelines for the sustainable exploitation of marine resources. Future noise pollution models will need to include precise information on specific noise sources, the propagation of elastic waves in marine environments, and the impact of noise on individual marine species. SWIM helps us understand how new wind farms could affect toothed whales, depending on their characteristics (such as fixed or floating turbines) and their location. The plan for this phase was to deploy two bottom recorders at two locations defined by the transect strategy to enable long-term understanding of how variations in turbine speed, caused by changes in wind, affect noise generation. At the same time, the aim was to understand how that noise propagates, as the synchronised recorders would allow the distance between them to define the amplitude loss of the noise. For this survey, Nauta Scientific was contracted. Nauta Scientific developed independent seabottom recorders that can be deployed and recovered up to two months later.

The seas and oceans provide resources for a range of industrial and recreational activities, from commercial shipping to recreational boating, and from resource exploration to wind energy. All these rapidly expanding activities generate sounds, often very loud, that travel long distances through water. The growth of the ocean economy means that human-generated noise is becoming dominant in marine soundscapes worldwide. It has been observed that this can be very harmful to marine life, but the extent of the damage has not been quantified. Scientific knowledge of underwater noise pollution is growing rapidly but remains limited; further research is needed to provide policymakers with essential guidelines for the sustainable exploitation of marine resources. Future noise pollution models will need to include precise information on specific noise sources, the propagation of elastic waves in marine environments, and the impact of noise on individual marine species. SWIM helps us understand how new wind farms could affect toothed whales, depending on their characteristics (such as fixed or floating turbines) and their location. The preparatory survey lasted two days, from 19 to 20 August 2024. During this time, an initial set of recordings was made to identify possible issues and to test the instrumentation to be used in the main measurement campaigns. The best locations for the deployment of the extended period survey planned for later were also defined during this period. During this campaign, several measurements were acquired following a transect strategy, with progressively increasing distance from the turbines and increasing sea bottom depth. This allows modelling of the actual propagation of turbine-related noise and comparison with the measurements.