PNNL

Abstract

1. Underwater anthropogenic noise can cause physical, physiological, and behavioral impacts on marine fishes. With the development of marine energy facilities in the past two decades, the potential effects of man-made noise on marine fishes have become a growing regulatory concern. 2. However, large gaps remain in how to perform noise assessment in the ocean. Such gaps mainly reside in scientific evidence, regulatory criteria, noise characterization metrics, sound field modeling, and instrumentation for field measurement. 3. This paper revisited existing work on underwater noise assessment for marine fishes to identify critical gaps and provide perspectives on how to deal with these gaps, demonstrated with a case study on the impact of the Hood Canal Bridge traffic noise on migrating steelhead smolts in Washington State, U.S. 4. We also provide perspectives on future research directions to bridge the identified gaps and make noise assessment more viable in underwater ecology assessment.