VIDEO: Kongsberg Underwater Noise Monitoring

The Marine Safety Framework Direcitve (MSFD) will soon require EU Member States to have strategies in place for monitoring and, where necessary, mitigating underwater noise.

Kongsberg Maritime has designed and developed underwater monitoring systems, such as Seaglider, AMBS and RUNES.

Seaglider is developed for continuous passive acoustic monitoring.

Kongsberg Maritime’s Acoustic Monitoring Buoy System (AMBS) is built to measure underwater construction and operational noise levels in “real time”.

Offshore activities, including renewable energy development projects, introduce levels of noise that impact on marine life to some degree.

The AMBS system will record and display “real time” underwater noise levels during site development, operation or decommissioning activities and can be used in support of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Marine Mammal Observers/Passive Acoustic Monitoring (MMO/PAM) operations.

According to the company, Kongsberg Maritime has specifically designed and developed the Remote Underwater Noise Evaluation System (RUNES) to comprehensively measure underwater background noise levels over extended periods of time.

As all offshore activities, including renewable energy development projects, develop companies are under increasing regulatory pressure to understand and reduce the risk to the environment from a wide range of activities that have the potential to generate harmful levels of sound.

The RUNES system will establish baseline underwater noise levels prior to any development or activity taking place and can be used in support of EIA and MMO/PAM operations.

RUNES is an autonomous recording unit that removes the need for surface support vessels and personnel during the main operation.

Powered by rechargeable batteries, RUNES can operate for 30 days, passively recording acoustic activity while resting on the seabed.