Dear MARMAM community,

We are pleased to announce the open-access publication of our paper:

Title: Recommendations on Bioacoustical Metrics Relevant for Regulating Exposure to Anthropogenic Underwater Sound.

Lucke, K., MacGillivray, A.O., Halvorsen, M.B., Ainslie, M.A., Zeddies, D.G., and Sisneros, J.A. 2024. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (Vol.156, Issue 4), DOI: 10.1121/10.0028586

The publication will be part of a special issue on Verification and Validation of Source and Propagation Models for Underwater Sound and is available open access to all: https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0028586

Abstract:

Metrics to be used in noise impact assessment must integrate the physical acoustic characteristics of the sound field

with relevant biology of animals. Several metrics have been established to determine and regulate underwater noise

exposure to aquatic fauna. However, recent advances in understanding cause-effect relationships indicate that additional

metrics are needed to fully describe and quantify the impact of sound fields on aquatic fauna. Existing regulations

have primarily focused on marine mammals and are based on the dichotomy of sound types as being either

impulsive or non-impulsive. This classification of sound types, however, is overly simplistic and insufficient for adequate

impact assessments of sound on animals. It is recommended that the definition of impulsiveness be refined by

incorporating kurtosis as an additional parameter and applying an appropriate conversion factor. Auditory frequency

weighting functions, which scale the importance of particular sound frequencies to account for an animal’s sensitivity

to those frequencies, should be applied. Minimum phase filters are recommended for calculating weighted sound

pressure. Temporal observation windows should be reported as signal duration influences its detectability by animals.

Acknowledging that auditory integration time differs across species and is frequency dependent, standardized

temporal integration windows are proposed for various signal types.

Best regards,

Klaus Lucke.

Dr. Klaus Lucke

Fachgebiet II 2.3 „Schutz der Meere und Polargebiete“

Section II 2.3 „Protection of the Seas and Polar Regions“

Umweltbundesamt

Wörlitzer Platz 1

06844 Dessau-Roßlau

Germany

Telefon: +49 (0) 340 2103 3251

Email: klaus.lucke@uba.de