Last week I already introduced you to the anthropocene campus and to the theme of sound and listening On the second part of the walkshop we decided to listen to the lagoon: yes, to the sounds going on underneath (no, we are not crazy). I already spoke about the issues of underwater noise , and recently a new report of the European marine board came out The first part of the foreword are already some food for thought :
'With all due respect to Commander Cousteau, the Ocean is not “Le monde du silence” (the silent world). Actually, sound propagates particularly well underwater and the deep world of the Ocean is traversed by a multitude of natural and anthropogenic sounds.' And it couldn’t be more true also for the lagoon: we submerged the hydrophone in three different spots , and the sounds one could hear were of all kinds. Even in the ‘quiet’ canal one could hear the sound water made as it passed behind a metal strip on one of the poles, and little crackling noises of crustaceans and oysters could be made out after the ear was fine tuned to the right wavelength. On the other hand in the busy parts one could clearly hear boat traffic , some vessels noisier than others. Gondolas are much more silent: actually you can only make out the sound of the oar if you really pay attention and chances are that it will sneak up on your eyesights before you can hear it , differently from a transport boat that you can hear manoeuvring from afar, making up the shifts in gear and neutral and identifying its direction just from the sound.... Now. It should be important to know that sound is an essential part of the ecosystem function . I already mentioned a few stories of how animals use sound , and I find incredibly interesting how sound can also be used by larvae to locate suitable areas for settlement? Yes. To choose where to put their roots , or in the case of oysters , where to start cementing… think about it : we also do that in a way when choosing a house , we don’t like living next to a motorway or above a noisy pub right ? It’s so interesting that researchers found the right sounds to play for oyster reefs ecosystem recovery ! You can read (and hear) more about oysters sound preference here and here And yet , we often think about pollution and emissions but rarely about sound pollution underwater. We should. And why not also think of really harnessing this tool for restoration purposes ?
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