Measurement of underwater noise arising from dredging operations

G Hayman, L S Wang
National Physical Laboratory, Hampton Road, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 0LW, UK

Background
Each year around 20million tonnes of sand and gravel is extracted from UK waters for use in the construction and building industry. Extraction of marine aggregate has the potential to generate noise at levels which could have a negative impact on marine species in or around the dredging area. NPL has recently delivered a major collaborative project to measure the underwater noise produced during dredging operations in order to enable the impact on marine life to be assessed. The project was funded by the UK Marine Aggregate Levy Sustainability Fund (MALSF) and involved the Universities of Southampton and Loughborough, and Gardline Ltd.

Measurements were obtained using a combination of static, bottom-mounted recording systems, and hydrophones deployed from an anchored survey vessel. The use of multiple measurement positions provided simultaneous measurement points at a number of ranges. During some of the measurements a vertical line array was deployed in order to identify the locations of the noise sources and seabed vibration was measured using a geophone.

Results
The graph below shows the third-octave band dipole source levels for each vessel measured and these are compared to those of a cargo vessel, the Overseas Harriette, travelling at 8knots and 16knots.

survey vessel buoy buoy

dredger

pump hydrophones head sea-bed 400 m geophone 120 m 50 m

Source Level Calculation

In order to estimate the Source Level for the vessel from the data measured at any particular range we need to compensate for the Transmission Loss in the water channel. As dredging operations typically take place in a localised area over a period of a few hours, the Sound Exposure Level (SEL) was also estimated over an area in which marine life might be affected. The results for a dredging operation lasting four hours over a track length of 1 km are shown below. For this exposure time, the cumulative Sound Exposure Level can reach values as high as 190dB re 1Pa2s, but only within a few tens of metres of the dredging lane.

Vessels
The type of vessel used for marine aggregate extraction in UK waters is the trailing suction hopper dredger. This type of dredger lowers a drag head and suction pipe to the sea floor to extract the sand or gravel, depositing it in a hopper on the vessel and returning any unwanted material and water over the side.

Images in shallow water transmission Urick, Principles of Underwater Sound, 1983

During the dredging process the vessel travels up and down the same lane, typically around 1km in length, at a slow speed of around 1.5knots, lifting the drag head to turn at the end of the track. A single dredging operation can take anything from as little as 3hours to as long as 12hours to complete.

An imagesource or raytrace model was used which models the sound field of a source as the sum of the acoustic radiation from the source and a series of images of the source reflected in the medium boundaries, in this case the water surface and seabed. The model also takes into account the frequency dependent absorption of the seawater, the roughness of the sea surface and the properties of the seabed sediment.

Conclusions
The measurements show that source levels at frequencies below 500Hz are generally in line with those expected for a cargo ship travelling at modest speed, while those at frequencies above 1kHz show elevated levels of broadband noise generated by the aggregate extraction process itself. By comparing measurements from different dredging areas it was found that the elevated broadband noise is dependent on the aggregate type being extracted coarse gravel generating higher noise levels than sand.

Measurements
Noise measurements were performed on sixdredging vessels from the UK fleet in threedredging areas with one of the vessels measured in two separate locations. For each dredger, measurements were performed as a function of range from the vessel at up to 4positions along a transect normal to the centre point of the dredging track.

References
Queens Printer and Controller of HMSO, 2011.

Image-source model compared to standard models

S. P. Robinson, P. D. Theobald, G. Hayman, L. S. Wang, P. A. Lepper, V. Humphrey, S. Mumford, Measurement of noise arising from marine aggregate dredging operations, MALSF (MEPF Ref no. 09/P108), 2011

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