SWIM

People use seas and oceans in a variety of industrial and recreational activities – from commercial shipping to yachting, from resource exploration to wind power – that are quickly expanding. All such activities result in the emission of sounds, often very loud,that propagate through water at possibly long distances. The growth of ocean economy means that such man-made noises are becoming dominant in marine soundscapes all over the world. It has been observed that this can be very disruptive to marine life, but the full extent of such disruption has not been quantified. Scientific knowledge of underwater noise pollution is quickly growing, but still very limited: research is needed to provide policy makers with guidelines, that are crucial to taking advantage of marine resources in a sustainable way. Future noise pollution models must include precise information on

• specific noise sources;
• the propagation of elastic waves in marine environments;
• the impact of noise on individual marine species.

SWIM contributes to understanding how the new wind farms might impact toothed whales, depending on their characteristics (e.g., fixed vs floating turbines) and their location.