IQOE International Year of the Quiet Ocean

Submitted by eurban on Tue, 04/13/2021 - 15:46

The IQOE Science Plan published in 2015 featured the concept of an International Year of the Quiet Ocean (IYQO). This year would seek quieting of the ocean in specific areas to study how much human additions of sound could be reduced and how organisms would react, as well as more generally focus effort on IQOE-related observations and research. The IQOE Science Plan suggested the IYQO as year 7 of the 10-year IQOE project. IQOE also foresaw studies that would take advantage of serendipitous events that change ocean noise levels.

During Year 5 of the IQOE project (2020) the COVID-19 pandemic provided an unanticipated interval of reduced sound levels larger than IQOE dreamed possible through an IYQO based on voluntary reductions of anthropogenic sound. Appreciating this extraordinary occurrence, IQOE has designated 2020 the International Year of the Quiet Ocean and is focusing project resources to encourage study of changes in sound levels and effects on organisms during 2020. Fortunately, the worldwide ocean acoustics community had deployed hundreds of hydrophones able to capture the ocean soundscape during 2019-2021.

IQOE-related teams are releasing software to enable comparable analyses of sound observations and a data management system to assemble data from observations in many different locations.

Preliminary results from individual studies of 2020 indicate that the effects on marine animal behavior of changes in human activities in different locations depend on particular features of local and regional sound source reductions, pandemic-mitigation policies adopted in each area, and national maritime and marine recreation cultures.

Status

IQOE is in its 9th year as a 10-year project and continues to implement of its Science Plan (available here). IQOE has successfully coordinated a variety of activities in ocean acoustics and bioacoustics through IQOE working groups on the use of acoustics to assess biodiversity, the importance of acoustic observations in the Arctic Ocean, standards for reporting ocean acoustic and bioacoustic data for IQOE, software for making acoustic observations comparable worldwide, and recommendations for implementation of an Ocean Sound Essential Ocean Variable for the Global Ocean Observing System. IQOE progress has been documented since June 2018 through IQOE Newsletters and since the beginning of the project through other products. IQOE identified 2020 as the Year of the Quiet Ocean because of evidence that ocean sound decreased because of decreases in human activities in the ocean due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Next Steps

Activities in 2024 will include actions to help implement the Ocean Sound Essential Ocean Variable Implementation Plan; continuation of new activities on low-cost ocean acoustic observing systems and expansion of the Open Portal to Underwater Sound (OPUS), implementation of the Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds, sponsorship of the second World Ocean Passive Acoustic Monitoring Day; and meetings of IQOE working groups and Science Committee.