Nathalie Roy

Shipping noise in whale habitat: Characteristics, sources, budget, and impact on belugas in Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park hub

A continuous car ferry line crossing the Saguenay Fjord mouth and traffic from the local whale-watching fleet introduce high levels of shipping noise in the heart of the Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park. To characterize this noise and examine its potential impact on belugas, a 4-hydrophone array was deployed in the area and continuously recorded for five weeks in May-June 2009. The source levels of the different vessel types showed little dependence on vessel size or speed increase. Their spectral range covered 33 dB. Lowest noise levels occurred at night, when ferry crossing pace was reduced, and daytime noise peaked during whale-watching tour departures and arrivals. Natural ambient noise prevailed 9.4% of the time. Ferry traffic added 30-35 dB to ambient levels above 1 kHz during crossings, which contributed 8 to 14 dB to hourly averages. The whale-watching fleet added up to 5.6 dB during peak hours. Assuming no behavioral or auditory compensation, half of the time, beluga potential communication range was reduced to less than ~30% of its expected value under natural noise conditions, and to less than ~15% for one quarter of the time, with little dependence on call frequency. The echolocation band for this population of belugas was also affected by the shipping noise.

Analysis and modeling of 255 source levels of merchant ships from an acoustic observatory along St. Lawrence Seaway

An ensemble of 255 spectral source levels (SSLs) of merchant ships were measured with an opportunistic seaway acoustic observatory adhering to the American National Standards Institute/Acoustical Society of America S12.64-2009 standard as much as possible, and deployed in the 350-m deep lower St. Lawrence Seaway in eastern Canada. The estimated SSLs were sensitive to the transmission loss model. The best transmission loss model at the three measuring depths was an empirical in situ function for ranges larger than 300 m, fused with estimates from a wavenumber integration propagation model fed with inverted local geoacoustic properties for [300 to 1 m] ranges. Resulting SSLs still showed a high variability. Uni- and multi-variate analyses showed weak intermingled relations with ship type, length, breadth, draught, speed, age, and other variables. Cluster analyses distinguished six different SSL patterns, which did not correspond to distinctive physical characteristics of the ships. The broadband [20-500 Hz] source levels varied by 30 dB or more within all four 50-m length categories. Common SSL models based on frequency, length and speed failed to unbiasly replicate the observations. This article presents unbiased SSL models that explain 75%-88% of the variance using frequency, ship speed, and three other automatic identification system ship characteristics.

Shipping noise and whales: World tallest ocean liner vs largest animal on earth

The noise spectra radiated by the world tallest ocean liner, the Queen Mary II (QM2), when she sailed over the blue whale feeding ground of the Saguenay - St. Lawrence Marine Park in Sept. and Oct. 2004 are presented. Recordings for her 4 transits were made from an array of AURAL autonomous hydrophones moored at mid water depth along the navigation corridor at the head of the Laurentian channel. Typical ship noise Lloyds mirror patterns on spectrogram generally allowed identification of the closest points of approach (CPA) to the hydrophones. The analysis of the Doppler shift of stable QM2 spectral rays allowed estimating CPA ranges and sailing speed. QM2 noise signature is characterized by several strong rays between ~100 to 500 Hz, likely from her propulsion pods. Her average noise spectra are however enclosed within the envelope of the merchant ship noise measured in the area, except for high peaks below 40 Hz and the above rays. Broadband (10-1000 Hz) rms levels varied from 121 to 136 dB re 1muPa. As for most other merchant ships, this radiated shipping noise makes a barrier masking the low-frequency vocalizations of calling blue and fin whales over a large part of the basin

Large-Scale Atmospheric and Oceanic Control on Krill Transport into the St. Lawrence Estuary Evidenced with Three-Dimensional Numerical Modelling

ABSTRACT A three-dimensional circulation model, coupled to a Lagrangian particle drift model, is used to understand the processes leading to krill transport from the northwest Gulf of St. Lawrence (nwGSL) towards the head of the Lower St. Lawrence Estuary (LSLE), a well-known site of krill accumulation. An analysis of the circulation at the scale of the Gulf of St. Lawrence (GSL) over five years (2006 to 2010) evidenced four major findings. (i) There are two main seasonal circulation patterns, one in winter–spring and one in summer–fall, driven by local wind forcing and transport at Cabot Strait and at the Strait of Belle Isle. (ii) The freshwater runoff variability does not control the observed inflow events at the mouth of the LSLE. (iii) Extratropical storms passing over the GSL are important for the transport of krill into the LSLE through the generation of inflow events at Pointe-des-Monts. (iv) The contribution of the transport in the surface layer (where krill are found at night) during these inflow events is also important in modulating the variability of the transport of krill into the LSLE. The inflow events, combined with the presence or absence of high krill densities in the nwGSL, partly control the interannual variability of the transport of krill into the LSLE.

Mapping probability of shipping sound exposure level

Mapping vessel noise is emerging as one method of identifying areas where sound exposure due to shipping noise could have negative impacts on aquatic ecosystems. The probability distribution function (pdf) of sound exposure levels (SEL) is an important metric for identifying areas of concern. In this paper a probabilistic shipping SEL modeling method is described to obtain the pdf of SEL using the sonar equation and statistical relations linking the pdfs of ship traffic density, source levels, and transmission losses to their products and sums.

Groundtruthed probabilistic shipping noise modeling and mapping: Application to blue whale habitat in the Gulf of St. Lawrence

The Estuary and the Gulf of St. Lawrence constitute a large marginal sea of Northwest Atlantic of ∼260,000 km2, which is crossed by the main shipping route to the Great Lakes and where ∼125 ships are cruising every time. This inland sea is also part of the habitat of the endangered Northwest Atlantic blue whale population, which frequent these waters throughout the year as indicated by a recent passive acoustic study. The present study aims at estimating the degree of blue whale exposure to shipping noise, in space and time, and the risks of auditory damages, behavioral responses and communication masking in this region. First, shipping noise radiated from the AIS-monitored traffic is modeled, mapped with a high time-space resolution, and validated using in situ measurements from a dedicated ANSI-compliant acoustic observatory along the seaway. The latter is also used to estimate the source levels of the ships. Shipping noise statistics over the region are then computed and risk metrics of blue whale expo...

A Seaway Acoustic Observatory in Action: The St. Lawrence Seaway

A setup for measuring spectral source levels (SSLs) of ships transiting along a seaway, the traffic density and shipping noise, is presented. The results feed shipping-noise modeling that reproduces the actual in situ observations to map shipping-noise variability over space and time for investigating its effects on aquatic organisms. The ships SSL databank allows sorting the different contributors to total shipping noise for assisting in exploring mitigation approaches (e.g., fleet composition, rerouting). Such an acoustic observatory was deployed since November 2012 for a complete annual cycle of measurements in the deep downstream part of the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Effects of shipping on marine acoustic habitats in Canadian Arctic estimated via probabilistic modeling and mapping

Canadian Arctic and Subarctic regions experience a rapid decrease of sea ice accompanied with increasing shipping traffic. The resulting time-space changes in shipping noise are studied for four key regions of this pristine environment, for 2013 traffic conditions and a hypothetical tenfold traffic increase. A probabilistic modeling and mapping framework, called Ramdam, which integrates the intrinsic variability and uncertainties of shipping noise and its effects on marine habitats, is developed and applied. A substantial transformation of soundscapes is observed in areas where shipping noise changes from present occasional-transient contributor to a dominant noise source. Examination of impacts on low-frequency mammals within ecologically and biologically significant areas reveals that shipping noise has the potential to trigger behavioral responses and masking in the future, although no risk of temporary or permanent hearing threshold shifts is noted. Such probabilistic modeling and mapping is strategic in marine spatial planning of this emerging noise issues.

Saguenay fjord entrance whale feeding ground: Acoustic study of sill dynamics and tidal aggregation of forage fish

The Saguenay fjord entrance in the St. Lawrence Estuary at Tadoussac is a world famous site where beluga and minke whales can be regularly observed from the coast. Strong tidal upwelling over the shallow sill of the fjord controls the exchanges with the St. Lawrence. In May 2005, an intensive oceanographic and acoustic survey was conducted to understand how the complex 3D hydrodynamics may contribute to concentrating whale preys. High time‐space resolution acoustics (38 and 120 kHz split‐beam), ADCP (acoustic Doppler current profilers), CTD profiles, plankton and micronekton sampling were used to track the 3D movements of water masses, zooplankton and forage fish. During flood, the dense cold waters that jump over the sill block the Saguenay outflow and subduct into the fjord with their fish and zooplankton content. This complex 3D circulation generates fronts and convergence zones where biomass is concentrating until current reversal occurs during ebb. These concentrations are then advected and dispersed...

Whistle source levels of free-ranging beluga whales in Saguenay-St. Lawrence marine park

Wild beluga whistle source levels (SLs) are estimated from 52 three-dimensional (3D) localized calls using a 4-hydrophone array. The probability distribution functions of the root-mean-square (rms) SL in the time domain, and the peak, the strongest 3-dB, and 10-dB SLs from the spectrogram, were non-Gaussian. The average rms SL was 143.8 ± 6.7 dB re 1 μPa at 1 m. SL spectral metrics were, respectively, 145.8 ± 8 dB, 143.2 ± 7.1 dB, and 138.5 ± 6.9 dB re 1 μPa(2)·Hz(-1) at 1 m.