The Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics of the UPC has developed a system that enables recording sound on sea floors and accessing the information on the Internet in real time.
The new European directive on the sea requires that, before 2012, member states must comply with a series of indicators measuring marine noise pollution. Already in 2007, the Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics (LAB) of the UPC started the Listening to The Deep Ocean Environment (LIDO) project, in order to record the sounds on the sea floor and subsequently assess to what extent artificial noises (maritime transportation, fishing, offshore facilities, military maneuvers, etc.) influence and affect the quality of life of cetaceans, result in disorders or even death.
Now the LAB, led by Michel André, has developed some algorithms that interpret these sounds automatically, classifying them in real time according to their biological or anthropogenic origins. Once this distinction has been made, the species of cetaceans present in the area are studied. The data enable measurement of the degree of impact that noise pollution sources are having on the conversation of ecosystems.
The innovation is the first of its kind in the world, and saves a considerable amount of analytical time and human resources necessary during the processes of detecting and classifying sounds, given that this is completely automated. In this manner, the technology avoids a continuous flow of unanalyzed acoustic data from reaching research centers, and saturating their hard drives. This has been a problem when it comes to processing the uninterrupted data series.
Through a set of 13 hydrophones installed in more than ten underwater platforms located around the world, the UPC’s system detects the presence of cetaceans and enables the study of the relationship between these animals and other mammals in their habitat. This innovation opens up a completely unprecedented world for the biological understanding of these species. But the importance of the LIDO project lies in the possibility of gaining a closer understanding of the sensitivity of cetaceans to sources of acoustic contamination, detecting the interaction between these animals and human activity and, most importantly, allowing decision making in order to reduce noise when the lives of these mammals are threatened.
Until now, the increase in beached whales, sperm whales and other cetaceans has been ascribed to the increase in noise produced by fishing, maritime commerce, military maneuvers and the construction of offshore oil rigs and wind farms. Now, thanks to the technology developed by the research team from the UPC, located at the Campus de Vilanova i la Geltrú, it will be possible to prove with certainty the direct cause-effect relationship that exists between the two.
Finally, the acoustic signals and results of the analysis can be heard and viewed live through a webpage that is accessible to the international scientific community and the interested public.