Novel low-cost methods for marine mammal and environmental monitoring

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NERC
NERC
NERC
NERC
NERC

£1,767,425

Jan. 1, 2018

July 1, 2020

The UK is rapidly entering a phase where the majority of its energy comes from renewable resources. However, to
maintain this push towards green energy providers will need to find more sites to generate power. In recent years there
have been moves towards using offshore wind generation instead of onshore wind farms. Whilst offshore wind has many
advantages there is potential impact on marine wildlife that needs to be considered. New applications for offshore windfarm
sites require a thorough Environmental Impact Assessment and the offshore environment makes it hard to accurately
assess current marine populations, making this a time-consuming and costly operation.

In this research we propose to develop a real-time acoustic monitoring platform that will enable operators to assess a site
for marine mammal activity at a fraction of the current cost and effort and moreover, produce better and more accurate
results. This will be done by deploying large numbers of novel low cost, low power underwater wireless sensor devices
(NanoPAMs) which detect the sounds that marine mammals make to navigate, hunt and communicate. The data from each
NanoPAM is transmitted using acoustic signals over distances up to 10 km to a surface buoy. Since the animals may be
able to hear these acoustic signals, the NanoPAMs transmit very low energy acoustic signals which blend into the
background noise and are also smart enough to wait until animals have left the area before transmitting so as not to
influence behaviour. The surface buoy then uses radio to send the received data back to shore where it can be visualised
and analysed.

On shore, the data collected can be turned into an understanding of the current activity of marine mammals and also to
monitor the ongoing impact of offshore windfarm developments. In future, the system could be rapidly deployed in multiple
locations to help select sites that would minimise the impact on our marine wildlife.

Potential Impact:
The research conducted and the resulting technologies and methods will benefit end-users that plan to conduct marine
anthropogenic activities e.g. offshore construction. It will provide the complete hardware and software system, and
associated analysis tools necessary to conduct assessment of marine mammal occurrence and noise in the area of
interest. The results from using the system will provide the necessary data and information for end-user and government
agencies (e.g. MMO, Cefas and IFCAs) to inform decision making and inform policy. It will further allow end-users to be proactive
and conduct Environmental Impact Assessments in multiple areas simultaneously (given the low cost of the methodology) to
select candidate sites for their intended development that would represent minimum environmental impact and therefore
increase the likelihood that applications are given consent.

In contrast to currently available autonomous passive acoustic recorders, the proposed methodology will be underwater
acoustically networked passive acoustic monitor devices (NanoPAM) and a surface gateway buoy with radio
communication back to operators on shore. The proposed system will transmit data back to shore in near real time,
practically eliminating data loss (recording devices being commonly lost) and facilitating much more timely analysis and
decision making. The in-built acoustic communication and positioning capability also facilitates recovery and minimises the
risk of hardware loss. The low cost of the hardware and combined with the reduction in vessel time for
deployment/recovery and data upload will bring about a step change in the cost effectiveness of marine mammal surveys.

This development also represents an opportunity for significant commercial impact via enhanced product offerings from
marine instrumentation companies with whom the investigators have close links. Marine mammal monitoring technology is
currently relatively high cost and with a high risk of deployment, whereas this technology opens up the market for much
lower cost, higher volume products with worldwide market potential. The research team have a strong track record in
transferring underwater acoustic technologies to industrial partners and successful commercialisation via licensing.