As people continue to gather in expanding cities, noise pollution has been described as the next public health crisis. In the ocean, this situation is aggravated as sound travels further in water than it does in air. With the sound from a ship’s propeller hitting up to 170 decibels, the equivalent of a rocket engine at lift-off, and travelling up to 160 km before fully dissipating, the survival of marine life is threatened. Imagine what it’s like to be a marine animal with container ships, ferries and other commercial vessels passing overhead. When affected by noise, whales and many other marine animals struggle to communicate, eat, and reproduce.
In response, a project developed by Clear Seas and funded by Transport Canada’s Quiet Vessel Initiative and Mitacs’ Accelerate Program brings together a research team of engineers and marine biologists at the University of British Columbia to solve this serious problem by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence. To help them with their work, the research team have invited experts from across North America to join a collaborative design workshop in Vancouver, BC on June 1-2 to develop innovative ways to tackle this issue of underwater noise from ships.
View Online