The SeaStats Dashboard
The SeaStats Dashboard has been developed for all BCHN hydrophones to visualize a variety of metrics from the underwater acoustic data that holds a wealth of information on the acoustic soundscape in the area surrounding each hydrophone location. This page is intended as a guide to understand and utilize the acoustic data collected by each hydrophone. Below you will find details and instructional videos on how to access the SeaStats dashboard, and each metric available through the SeaStats dashboard.
SeaStats Metrics
- Station Summary
- Daily Whale Detections
- Acoustic Whale Events
- Daily Soundscape
- Spectral Densities
- Sound Levels
- Station Recording Time
Accessing the SeaStats Dashboard: The Interactive Map
The interactive map is where you can find all of the hydrophones that are in the water and part of the BC Hydrophone Network. It is also where you can connect to the SeaStats dashboard. To access the dashboard for each hydrophone, click on the hydrophone location of interest either from the legend on the left of the map or by clicking on the hydrophone symbols on the map itself. This will bring up a small data summary with the option to “view dashboard” – click on this button to open up the interactive SeaStats dashboard. You will notice some of the hydrophone locations have a lock symbol beside them in the legend. This indicates that the dashboard is only accessible with a password. If you would like to view the dashboard for these locations, please reach out to the data owner directly.
Metrics available on the SeaStats Dashboard:
The whale call detection/acoustic activity metric shows the number of whale calls within a calendar day detected for different whale species. The result is a call rate for every 24 hours that can be used to learn about the amount of whale acoustic activity on any given day, as well as tracking these activity patterns over multiple months or years.
These 24h call rates are calculated by counting whale call detections for each calendar day, which are then divided by the number of hours the hydrophone was collecting data, referred to as the recording effort. Only intervals with a recording effort greater than 50% of the day, or greater than 12 hours, were considered. Days with less than 50% effort are treated as no data and highlighted by gray shaded areas in the interactive graphic.
There is also a “Smoothing” option for the data which can be found on the right of the dashboard under settings. Enabling this option will smooth out data over time by calculating the average of a specific number of consecutive daily values. Smoothing the data will highlight trends and patterns that might be obscured by daily fluctuations.
Acoustic Whale Events show time periods of continuous whale vocal activity. Each bubble in the interactive graph marks an acoustic event with information about the time-of-year, hour-of-day, the duration of the event, as well as the number of calls during the activity. Hovering with the mouse over a bubble will show a pop-up window with detailed information about this event. If a speaker symbol is visible in the top left corner, it is possible to listen to the acoustic event. By clicking on the bubble, a window will pop up with a spectrogram and the ability to visualize and listen to the 60 second window in that acoustic event that contained the most whale calls.
Acoustic whale events are defined as clusters of automated whale call detections within a certain time window. The clustering algorithm DBSCAN (Density Based Clustering for Applications with Noise) is used to find whale call clusters based on conditions for the maximum allowed time between two calls, the minimum number of calls, and the minimum event length. The exact conditions under which multiple call detections are considered an event depends on the species and call type and range between a minimum of 3 to 10 call detections within an interval of 30 seconds to 10 minutes. Only intervals with a recording effort greater than 50% of the day, or greater than 12 hours, are considered. Days with less than 50% effort are treated as no data and highlighted by gray shaded areas in the interactive graphic.
Daily Soundscape – also known as Spectral Averages, displays the soundscape within range of the hydrophone for a 24-hour day as a diagram. It highlights the level of acoustic energy that is present at different frequencies and times with colour, so that the entire day can be visualized at a glance. High levels of noise are yellow, and quiet periods are blue or black. White areas mark periods of time where acoustic data was not collected. The graphic itself is not interactive, but individual days can be selected through the year, month, and day drop-down menus.
Spectral Densities – A visualization of energy distribution across the frequency spectrum for a calendar month. This metric is intended for use by BC Hydrophone Network engineers to monitor the efficiency of the hydrophone instrumentation.
Sound Levels – displays the detected sound pressure levels (SPLs) averaged over a calendar day for a variety of frequency bands. Under settings you are able to choose different frequency bands which represent different regions of the acoustic spectrum, each with distinct sound characteristics. The low frequency band (10 – 100 Hz) includes vessel noise, flow noise, and wave noise, and covers the communication frequency range of fin whales. The mid frequency band (100 – 1000 Hz) includes vessel noise and wave noise and overlaps with the vocalization frequency range of humpback whales. The high frequency band (1 – 10 kHz) overlaps with wind and rain noise, and the vocalization frequency of both humpback whales and orca.
There is also a “Smoothing” option for the data which can be found on the right of the dashboard under settings. Enabling this option will smooth out data over time by calculating the average of a specific number of consecutive daily values. Smoothing the data will highlight trends and patterns that might be obscured by daily fluctuations.
Station Recording Effort – shows the percentage of time the deployed hydrophone station is operating and recording acoustic data per calendar day. The station recording effort is obtained by summing the duration of each processed recording across UTC calendar day intervals. Recording effort is computed by dividing the daily recording effort by 24h.
There is also a “Smoothing” option for the data which can be found on the right of the dashboard under settings. Enabling this option will smooth out data over time by calculating the average of a specific number of consecutive daily values. Smoothing the data will highlight trends and patterns that might be obscured by daily fluctuations.
Instructional Videos on the SeaStats Dashboard
