On 26 november 2014 HELCOM organized a workshop in Helsingfors on underwater noise. The aim of the workshop was to carry out a stock-taking of on-going activities for the MSFD descriptor D11, and based on this to discuss and plan the development of joint regional monitoring as well as the next steps for development of regional actions to manage human-induced underwater noise in the Baltic Sea.
Anna Nikolopoulos and Frida Fyhr from AquaBiota participated at the meeting and presented the ongoing work with the planning tool for underwater noise being developed within the BIAS project.
The foundation of the tool consists of the acoustic measurements collected in BIAS during 2014, and of the soundscape maps which are modelled within the project. The tool should also work for input of various GIS-data which are necessary within the management and monitoring of underwater noise. Except from the visualization framework, the tool will moreover include functions for statistical calculations in both space and time, such as those recommended by the EU technical subgroup of underwater noise, TSG Noise.
The intention with the tool is to design it for openly accessible data formats and for different end-users. In the months to come, AquaBiota and FOI will work on the technicalities of the tool and investigate the possibilities to couple the tool to the HELCOM data system.
More information about the workshop may be downloaded from the HELCOM meeting portal.