Tracking small cetaceans under water to inform collision risk: developing a tool for industry.

这项工作旨在为工业界提供系统，以填补有关小型鲸类在潮汐涡轮机场址分布的关键知识空白，协助以环保安全的方式及时和经济有效地开发潮汐可再生能源发电。如果人类要控制大气中的二氧化碳水平和应对气候变化，如果英国要实现其具有法律约束力的碳减排目标，那么充分利用所有适当的可再生能源发电技术将是至关重要的。幸运的是，英国拥有巨大的海上可再生能源发电潜力。潮汐能在可再生能源技术中具有完全可预测的独特优势，因此是任何可再生能源组合中特别有价值的组成部分。潮汐流涡轮机位于潮汐快速区。这些是相当小和不寻常的栖息地，研究相对较少。使用潮汐流发生器的主要环境问题之一是，大型动物，如海洋哺乳动物，可能会与旋转的叶片相撞，从而受伤甚至死亡。所有鲸类动物都是欧洲保护物种。为了评估碰撞风险，我们需要知道动物在旋转涡轮叶片附近的概率。这既是动物的二维空间密度分布的函数，也是动物随深度分布的函数。目前英国所有潮汐快速站点都缺乏这方面的信息。这种知识的缺乏带来了环境和经济风险。规划同意申请被推迟，开发商可能会采取繁琐和昂贵的缓解措施，最初可能只允许在“部署和监测”的基础上进行开发，这给开发商带来了风险，即如果确实发生碰撞，可能不得不拆除设备。有很发达的方法来确定鲸类的二维分布和密度。然而，我们认为，在这些具有挑战性的栖息地中，测量潜水深度和水下行为的唯一实用技术是使用漂流垂直方向的水听器阵列，通过到达时间差技术来定位发声动物。正是这种信念促使我们在2009年开始致力于开发这样的系统，以及分析它们产生的数据的软件。从那时起，我们已经开发并彻底测试了一个从漂流船上部署的系统。实地测试表明，该系统提供了可靠而准确的位置，动物的发声可以与轨迹联系起来，以揭示水下运动。我们正在建立一个重要的数据集，收集海豚在假定的潮汐点（主要在苏格兰）水下行为的新信息。然而，要使该系统对工业界广泛有用，该系统必须足够直接，以便工业界及其顾问进行常规部署。我们已经在很大程度上实现了这一目标，通过将其整合到PAMGUARD中，这是一个免费的开源鲸类动物检测，定位和跟踪包。然而，硬件有些笨重，这反映了它作为研发系统的起源。我们相信，最近的技术发展为开发一种经济实惠、独立自主的浮标系统提供了几种选择，这种系统可以从小船（如rhb）上手动部署，并自主操作。对于非专业团队来说，这应该是直接在现场使用的，因为需要更小的船，现场成本应该大大降低。我们还将水听器确定为一个可以提供知识的领域，从而节省大量成本。该提案旨在从现有系统中获取知识和知识产权，并将其重新包装成一个更便宜、更容易使用的基于浮标的系统，并将其与定制软件一起作为开源资源免费提供。

This work aims to provide industry with system to fill key knowledge gaps on the distribution of small cetaceans at tidal turbine sites assisting the timely and cost effective development of tidal powered renewable energy generation in an environmentally safe manner.If mankind is to control atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and manage climate change, and if the UK is to meet its legally binding carbon reduction targets, it will be essential to make full use of all appropriate technologies for renewable power generation. The UK is fortunate in having substantial potential for generating renewable power offshore. Tidal power has the unique advantage amongst renewables technologies of being completely predictable and is thus a particularly valuable component of any renewable energy portfolio. Tidal stream turbines are site in tidal rapid areas. These are rather small and unusual habitats which have comparatively little studied. One of the main environmental concerns with the use of tidal stream generators is that large animals such as marine mammals will be in collision with the rotating blades and suffer injury or even death. All cetaceans are European Protected Species.To assess collision risk we need to know the probability that animals will be in the vicinity of rotating turbine blades. This is a function of both the two dimensional spatial density distribution of animals and their distribution with depth. This information is currently lacking at all UK tidal rapid sites. This lack of knowledge introduces both environmental and economic risks. Planning consent applications are being delayed, onerous and costly mitigation measures may be placed on developers and development may initially be allowed only on a "deploy and monitor" basis which carries the risk for developers that devices may have to be removed if collisions do indeed occur. There are well developed methods to determine the two dimensional distribution and density of cetaceans. However, we believe the only practical technique to measure dive depth and underwater behaviour in these challenging habitats it so use drifting vertically oriented arrays of hydrophones to locate vocalising animals by time of arrival difference techniques. It was this conviction that led us to start working to develop such systems, and the software to analyse the data they produce, in 2009. Since then we've developed and thoroughly tested a system which is deployed from a drifting vessel. Field tests have shown that the system provides reliable and accurate locations and that animal vocalisation can be linked into tracks to reveal underwater movements and we are building a significant dataset of new information on porpoise underwater behaviour at putative tidal sites, mostly in Scotland.To be widely useful to industry however, the system needs to be sufficiently straight forward for industry and their consultants to deploy routinely. We've largely achieved this with the software by incorporating it into PAMGUARD, a feely available open sources cetacean detection, localisation and tracking package. However, the hardware is somewhat cumbersome, reflecting its origins as a research and development system. We are confident that recent technological developments provide several options for developing an affordable, self contained autonomous buoy-based system that can be hand deployed from a small boat e.g. a Rhib and the operate autonomously. This should be straight forward for non-specialist teams to utilise in the field and because a much smaller vessel is required field costs should be substantially reduced. We've also identified hydrophones as an area where we can provide knowledge to allow substantial cost savings.This proposal aims to take the knowledge and IP from the existing system and repackage it in a less expensive and more easily used buoy based system and make this, along with customised software, freely available as an open source resource.