NEPTUNES – Mitigation of noise pollution from seagoing vessels at berth

Complaints about noise from (seagoing) vessels at berth are increasingly becoming an environmental issue. This is mainly due to the increase of the population in the residential areas around the ports, the rise of the number of residential areas being built closer to the port itself and the changed expectations from people living in the residential areas. To achieve sustainable port development and operations, there is a desire to overcome these challenges and research what causes the characteristic sound generated by moored vessels - and how it can be mitigated.

As this problem concerns vessels calling at different international ports, the project NEPTUNES (Noise Exploration Program To Understand Noise Emitted by Seagoing ships) was initiated by eleven ports in Northwest Europe, Australia and Canada.

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Within the NEPTUNES-Project different documents are developed:

1. A uniform and worldwide applicable measurement protocol is developed to carry out noise measurements on individual ships (e. g. container ships, cruise ships, tankers and RoRo/RoPax). Currently this measurement protocol is being verified by measurements following the protocol in the participating ports of the NEPTUNES group.

2. Furthermore a proposal for classifying ship noise in harbors will be prepared based on the results gained from the first measurements in the participating harbors.

3. As a main deliverable of the project, a best practice guide for noise mitigation measures will be developed to summarize the experiences of the NEPTUNES project.

http://www.neptunes.pro/

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