AIMS Integrated acoustic monitoring of marine environment noise

The ocean is anything but silent. Undersea noise is made up of an acoustic landscape that changes over time and space. In addition to sounds produced naturally by rain, waves and marine fauna, a growing level of noise originates from human activity in the form of navigation, intensive exploitation of marine resources, etc. Study of this acoustic chorus provides an innovative approach to defining the state of ecosystems and evaluating the impact of these human activities.

The AIMS project involves development of an open access integrated platform for the acquisition, processing, storage and analysis of passive acoustic data. The solution afforded by AIMS will make it possible, when rolling out industrial projects, to predict their marine environment acoustic footprint, evaluate the impact on marine fauna and set up a long-term acoustic monitoring programme.

AIMS will draw on the specific characteristics of undersea acoustics and marine ecology as well as on software engineering techniques for Big Data architecture (mass storage of data) and open access, specifically developed for the project.

The AIMS project is recognised jointly by the clusters Pôle Mer Bretagne Atlantique and Pôle Mer Méditerranée.