Research and Acoustic Data Request
The BC Hydrophone Network is a collaboration of multiple partners who together have established access to high quality underwater recordings of the marine soundscapes ranging from the south coast to north coast of British Columbia. This includes thousands of hours of a variety of whale vocalizations from multiple species as well levels of natural and anthropogenic noise levels in regions that differ environmentally and acoustically. If you would like to gain access to this acoustic database for a project, stewardship, management, or for community engagement from any of the hydrophones within the network please fill out this data request form and we will pass this on to the appropriate partner(s) for permission.
Below are examples of projects that the BC Hydrophone Network has supported to date.
- Development of an automated Vessel Detector. The Vessel detector is able to separate vessel noise from natural noise in a marine soundscape.
- Singing to be Heard: humpback whale song development and learning in BC coast feeding habitats, and the impacts of vessel noise.
- Proposing Slow Down Zones and Marine Protected Areas for critical whale hotspot areas.
- Development of a Risk Map outlining overlap in whale habitat usage and areas of high or increasing anthropogenic noise.
- Development of maximum allowable noise thresholds through a Noise Management Plan in Gitga’at Territory.
- Informing the Proactive Vessel Management (PVM) guidelines in Gitga’at Territory.
Scientific Papers
Our Approach
All hydrophones have been calibrated to enable absolute acoustic measurement for ambient noise assessments and vessel impact within the habitat of cetaceans at risk. The real time systems are outfitted with accurate timing clocks (GPS clocks) to allow for array processing of the data which enables researchers to assess whale behavior and document changes in the presence of vessel noise. Network data are transmitted to individual lab locations to be archived and backed up in a secure manner within the Network to provide researchers with a long-term time series for the purpose of monitoring trends spatially and temporally.
Data is processed to provide searchable whale detections, long term spectral averages and spectral probability density plots. This will assist researchers in finding the appropriate data for their research goals within the extensive acoustic dataset generated by the Network. The ability to search acoustic historic archives will enable coast wide research efforts from one platform.
Data products will be developed which show vocalization-based cetacean habitat usage and ocean noise health indices along the BC coast.
The dashboard “SeaStats” on the Interactive Map page displays a set of metrics produced at various locations along the BC coast which demonstrate the cumulative sound exposure levels, each day, for various frequency bands utilized by cetacean species at risk. An easy to interpret combination of habitat usage and noise exposure indices allows an efficient assessment of potential anthropogenic impacts to species at risk within a specified territory for users. Data products show present and historical data to allow visualization of seasonal and yearly changes detected by the hydrophone network.
Website based charts have been produced describing the habitat and noise exposure levels for cetaceans along the BC coast. The charts contain both current and historical habitat use and noise levels, and are available to territorial stewards including First Nations, Ports, Transport Canada, DFO, researchers and environmental organizations.
