Offshore wind turbine installation: noise effects
Impact distances for marine mammal injury and behavioral disturbance
These data are for demonstration purposes only. Dashboard by Waveform Analytics, LLC.
Subset selections
Installation type
Wind turbines may be installed using either impact pile driving alone, or else a combination of impact and vibratory pile driving.Criteria
Impact ranges may be calculated using criteria describing the potential for either injury or behavioral disturbance.* Unless otherwise indicated, the plots below show a broadband attenuation level of 10dB, and assume the summer sound speed profile.
Impact distances for each species
Seasonal comparison
The temperature structure of the water column changes from summer to winter, and that affects the sound propagation. This plot shows how impact distances differ between the two seasons.
Attenuation comparison
To mitigate the effects of the pile driving sounds, different noise attenuation systems can be used to essentially muffle the sound and reduce the impact ranges. This plot shows how different broadband attenuation levels can reduce the impact ranges.
Foundation comparison
Note: This plot format is based on a very nice example by Tanya Shapiro