A baseline underwater soundscape of an intensely human-exploited estuarine and the effects of vessel traffic sound

Abstract

In this article, we studied the anthropically impacted natural environmental sound in the port of Bahía Blanca, located in the southern province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. To acquire the acoustic signals, an omni-directional passive hydrophone was used. The acoustic signals were analyzed using scripts implemented in the R programming language. Temporal series without maritime traffic were used as a baseline to describe the soundscape in the harbour area by estimating its power spectral density (PSD). Subsequently, the acoustic environment was analyzed with the presence of two man-made acoustic sources: "boat" and "ship" in the vicinity. Finally, the calculated normal soundscape level in the harbour has a magnitude of 116.25 dB re 1 µPa.