{"id":57598,"date":"2015-09-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-engineers-to-monitor-wind-farm-construction-for-noise-impacts-on-marine-life\/"},"modified":"2015-09-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-09-29T00:00:00","slug":"uri-engineers-to-monitor-wind-farm-construction-for-noise-impacts-on-marine-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2015\/09\/uri-engineers-to-monitor-wind-farm-construction-for-noise-impacts-on-marine-life\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 engineers to monitor wind farm construction for noise impacts on marine life"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tNARRAGANSETT, R.I. \u2013 September 29, 2015 \u2013 溏心vlog免费B站 engineers are hoping that the first stages of construction of the Deepwater Wind offshore wind farm will answer what one researcher calls \u201cthe most interesting scientific question\u201d raised by such a project. And the answer has implications for the health of marine life.<\/p>\n


\n\tJames Miller, 溏心vlog免费B站 professor of ocean engineering, is leading a team of scientists and students conducting acoustic monitoring of the pile-driving phase of the wind farm\u2019s construction. He said that driving long metal poles 60-meters into the seabed to provide a foundation for the wind turbines is the noisiest part of the project.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWhen a pile is struck, it\u2019s like ringing a bell or like a hammer blow,\u201d he explained. \u201cThe pressure wave travels to the bottom of the pile and bounces back up and down again. That radiates loudly in the water, sediment and air. We\u2019re most interested in how that sound travels through the water and sediment and how it will affect whales, fish and diving birds.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThe construction of the first offshore wind turbines in the United States is providing an opportunity to learn about their effects on the environment and how best to assess them. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an agency of the U.S. Department of Interior, has funded the study to capitalize on this opportunity. Pile driving noise has been investigated extensively in the Gulf of Mexico, where offshore oil and gas platforms are abundant. But Miller said the marine life, water conditions and sediments are very different there, so its effects may be very different in the North Atlantic.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re particularly interested in the sediments because the sediment affects the propagation of sound in the water,\u201d Miller said. \u201cSome of our sediments are stiff and sandy, which would allow for a longer range impact.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tSo what about that \u201cmost interesting scientific question?\u201d <\/p>\n


\nMiller said the question deals with where the sound transitions from high intensity, short duration signals to low intensity, long duration signals. It\u2019s an important distinction that will help determine how to protect the hearing of sensitive whales and other marine life.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThink of it like a lightning strike,\u201d said Miller. \u201cIf you\u2019re close to a lightning strike, you don\u2019t hear any thunder, just the crack of the strike. But if you\u2019re a couple miles away, the sound spreads out and you hear a rumble of thunder. The same thing happens under water. If you\u2019re close to the pile driver, you hear the crack, but if you\u2019re far away you hear the rumble.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWe know that high intensity, short duration sounds \u2013 like a gunshot or lightning strike \u2013 can affect our hearing,\u201d he continued. \u201cBut at some point the sound transitions from high-intensity, short duration to low intensity rumbles. At what distance from the impact does that happen and how is it related to the environment?\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tMiller and his colleagues, working as a subcontractor for HDR Environmental, Operations and Construction Inc. of Denver, are placing hydrophones in the water at various distances from the construction site to collect data about the noise levels generated by the pile driver. During three days when the pile driving is taking place, the researchers \u2013 including 溏心vlog免费B站 Professor Gopu Potty and Kathy Vigness-Raposa and Geoff Sisson of Middletown-based Marine Acoustics Inc. \u2013 will also tow a 200-foot array of hydrophones from a 溏心vlog免费B站 boat on a 30-kilometer route away from the construction site. <\/p>\n


\nIn addition, Tim Mason with Subacoustech Environmental Ltd. in England is taking underwater acoustic measurements at a fixed location 750 meters from the pile driver and on transects away from the pile to 20 kilometers. And HDR project leader Randy Gallien is also using student interns from 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Department of Ocean Engineering to measure airborne noise and the visual impacts of the construction.<\/p>\n


\n\tAnalyzing the data will be complicated, because the water temperature, salinity, and sea surface roughness affect how sound travels. The amount of sun and clouds in the sky during the pile driving will also affect their results.<\/p>\n


\nPhoto caption: 溏心vlog免费B站 Ocean Engineering Professor Gopu Potty (left) helps deploy an array of hydrophones to monitor the noise from construction of the Deepwater Wind turbines. (Photo courtesy of James Miller).

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NARRAGANSETT, R.I. \u2013 September 29, 2015 \u2013 溏心vlog免费B站 engineers are hoping that the first stages of construction of the Deepwater Wind offshore wind farm will answer what one researcher calls \u201cthe most interesting scientific question\u201d raised by such a project. And the answer has implications for the health of marine life. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}