Project Updates From TNO

The Netherlands organisation for applied scientific research TNO was involved in various tasks in the SATURN project in 2024.

Participation in Work Package 2

Models for mapping sound pressure metrics over the environment in which animals are exposed to underwater radiated noise (URN) from ships have been developed in previous projects and applied in European ambient sound monitoring projects such as BIAS, JOMOPANS and JONAS. However, these maps represent metrics based on sound pressure within set frequency ranges.

The capability to produce maps of metrics based on sound particle motion, to which many fish and invertebrate species are sensitive, has been developed in SATURN. Deliverable 2.2 'Guidelines for Sound particle Motion Mapping’ for example, describes the results of the development of the capability to produce sound particle motion maps. It describes the relevant sound particle motion metrics and how these relate, models that can be used for producing sound particle motion maps and how these models can be verified and validated. The report provides examples of calculated particle motion sound maps (see Figure 1) and summarizes guidelines for sound particle motion mapping.

Figure 1: Map of the annual median depth-averaged particle acceleration level (PAL) from shipping and wind on the North Sea in 2020, in the frequency band from 8.91 Hz to 891 Hz (BC band).

In addition to this, TNO supported partners with underwater acoustic aspects in various tasks. They contributed to the development of standardized terminology (Deliverable 2.3) and signal processing (Task 2.1.1), and the development and testing of procedures for measuring URN of ships in shallow water (Deliverable 2.1). SATURN supported our participation in the ISO Working Group that has developed the draft international standard ISO DIS 17208-3, that was accepted in 2024. The final draft (FDIS) is currently at approval stage of the document lifecycle ( see Figure 2) and will be available in the coming months.

Figure 2: Current life cycle phase of ISO/FDIS 17208-3.

Participation in Work Package 3

In WP3, TNO has also assisted SATURN partners at UPC in the delivery of the Deliverable 3.1 report and the submission of a journal article. They have further assisted IBL in the acoustic design and evaluation of their laboratory set-ups to study the effects of URN on fishes and marine invertebrates, and have continued working with Arhus University on studies of the effect of ship URN on marine mammals.

TNO Webinar Participation

TNO has contributed to the dissemination of SATURN, presenting at the DOSITS webinar on URN from vessels, and the SATURN webinar on international standardization in underwater acoustics.

You can access and download a copy of the reports and deliverables mentioned in this post on our Results page or directly through the links below:

• D2.1 - Final Report of Vessel URN Measurement

• Task 2.1.1 - Verification of the Computation of Standardized Acoustic Statistics

• D2.2 - Guidelines for Sound particle Motion Mapping

• D2.3 SATURN Acoustical Terminology Standard

• D3.1 - Report on Particle Motion and Acoustic Pressure Measurements in the AquaVib