Environmental Studies Section

Technical Reports Related to Acoustic Research

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), through its Environmental Studies Program (ESP), funds and designs scientific research in support of the Federal offshore oil and gas leasing program in the Alaska Region. Since the late 1970s, ESP research projects in Alaska have included acoustic studies designed to assess noise effects from oil and gas operations on protected and endangered marine mammals, especially potential impacts on bowhead whale habitat, health, population, and migration. More than 30 different study reports have been completed so far that relate to effects of industry noise on bowhead whales in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The response of bowhead whales to anthropogenic noise has varied among studies and the overall effects of noise on whale populations remain largely inconclusive because of the complex and dynamic "spatial-temporal-spectral" variation that shapes marine acoustic environments. Further progress in understanding the effects of sound on marine ecosystems requires a long term and comprehensive approach, which has been underway with a new suite of integrated studies initiated in 2006.

List of the technical reports related to acoustic research