Modelling cumulative sound exposure around hydroacoustic sources

Abstract

While noise emissions are an unintentional by-product of shipping operations, hydroacoustic equipment such as multibeam sonars deliberately introduce high levels of noise into the subsea environment. In this paper, we model the sound field around a ship operating two types of hydroacoustic equipment, both in directions that are meant to be insonified and those that are not. A concept has been developed to quantify the accumulated noise exposure to a receiver in the water space around the ship. The paper describes the philosophy of the approach and the calculated sound exposure around the transmitting sound source for two typical systems. The results for noise exposure can be used to assess the effect on animal receivers with their respective characteristics. Copyright of Journal of Ocean Technology