Category FAQs Search : Ocean Noise Pollution
Question: Making Marine Noise Pollution Impacts Heard: The Case of Cetaceans in the North Sea within Life Cycle Impact Assessment
Answer: Oceans represent more than 95% of the world’s biosphere and are among the richest sources
of biodiversity on Earth. However, human activities such as shipping and construction of marine
infrastructure pose a threat to the quality of marine ecosystems. Due to the dependence of most
marine animals on sound for their communication, foraging, protection, and ultimately their survival,
the effects of noise pollution from human activities are of growing concern. Life cycle assessment
(LCA) can play a role in the understanding of how potential environmental impacts are related to
industrial processes. However, noise pollution impacts on marine ecosystems have not yet been
taken into account. This paper presents a first approach for the integration of noise impacts on
marine ecosystems into the LCA framework by developing characterization factors (CF) for the
North Sea. Noise pollution triggers a large variety of impact pathways, but as a starting point and
proof-of-concept we assessed impacts on the avoidance behaviour of cetaceans due to pile-driving
during the construction of offshore windfarms in the North Sea. Our approach regards the impact of
avoidance behaviour as a temporary loss of habitat, and assumes a temporary loss of all individuals
within that habitat from the total regional population. This was verified with an existing model
that assessed the population-level effect of noise pollution on harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena)
in the North Sea. We expanded our CF to also include other cetacean species and tested it in a
case study of the construction of an offshore windfarm (Prinses Amalia wind park). The total
impact of noise pollution was in the same order of magnitude as impacts on other ecosystems from
freshwater eutrophication, freshwater ecotoxicity, terrestrial acidification, and terrestrial ecotoxicity.
Although there are still many improvements to be made to this approach, it provides a basis for
the implementation of noise pollution impacts in an LCA framework, and has the potential to be
expanded to other world regions and impact pathways.
(Source: , 24 Aug 2021)
Source Link: https://tethys.pnnl.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Middel-Verones-2017.pdf