Aquo project - Research on solutions for the mitigation of shipping noise and its impact on marine fauna - Synthesis of guidelines

AQUO is a Collaborative European Research Project of the 7th Framework Program, in the scope of theme "Sustainable Surface Transport", topic coordinated with the "Oceans of Tomor-row". The project started in October 2012 for three years duration (see the website www.aquo.eu). The final goal is to provide policy makers with practical guidelines and solutions, in order to mitigate shipping underwater noise that can have negative consequences on marine fauna. The AQUO project addressed it by adopting a multi-disciplinary approach bringing together experts of naval industry, underwater acoustics and bioacoustics. After a general presentation of the project, the goal here is to synthesize the guidelines produced by AQUO project. Different types of solutions (ship design, ship operational parameters settings, ship traffic control) are assessed using three criteria: underwater radiated noise reduction, fuel efficiency and impact on marine fauna. For this last topic, an underwater noise footprint predictive model has been developed by Quiet-Oceans. This methodology allows identifying the most promising strategies for the mitigation of the impact of shipping noise on the marine fauna, and also the subjacent technical solutions. The results show that imposing a limit of underwater radiated noise to the noisiest ships seems to be the most effective solution, which is consistent with the recent Bureau Veritas notation NR614. After a presentation of some examples of concrete results, some conclusions on the main guidelines will be given with a proposal of actions plan.