Boundary Pass Underwater Listening Station—Data management and processing

Abstract

The Boundary Pass Underwater Listening Station, sponsored by Transport Canada, Port of Vancouver and JASCO Applied Sciences, has continuously operated two compact tetrahedral hydrophone arrays beneath the busy shipping lanes leading to Vancouver, Canada since June 2020. The arrays are deployed 300 m apart on the seabed at 190 m depth and are cabled 2.6km to shore. A high sample rate of 512 kHz on all eight channels, with 24-bit samples, produces almost 400 TB/yr of raw acoustic data. Automated real-time data analysis calculates ambient noise statistics, detects marine mammal sounds, measures underwater radiated noise of individual ships, and creates spatial noise maps of the hulls of some vessels passing closely overhead. The derived data products are stored in an easy-to-maintain online database of just a few TB/yr. Results in graphic, tabular and compressed audio formats are made available to scientists and project managers through an intuitive web interface. The project follows international standards for ship noise and ambient noise calculations, so the results can be compared with measurements made elsewhere.