Very shallow water noise impact of offshore windfarms: parameters to be considered

Abstract

The noise impact of offshore wind farms is becoming the concern of conservationism. The paper presents a summary of those aspects that can influence on the shallow and very shallow water environment where many of the wind farms are located. As a first result the experience shows the important influence of the installation and decommissioning phases while the normal running activity has a much smaller impact on mammals and other fauna. Results are given with respect to European waters mainly. These results refer to the frequency content, the time duration, the peak and lowest levels to expect and the interaction with the background noise. The knowledge of this set of data should be added to others from many different sites to form a data base that can become important in front of any future standardization.