Increasing ship traffic means a noisier Arctic Ocean

Female narwhal in the Canadian Arctic © naturepl .com / Doug Allan / WWF

You may have seen or already participated in our underwater noise campaign. This month, we’re featuring a guest post by Jennifer Brandon, senior scientist and director of communications at Applied Ocean Sciences in California, about how this noise affects Arctic species.

Close your eyes and picture yourself in the middle of a quiet, calm meadow full of flowers. Then imagine you have suddenly been transported to the centre of a thumping, deafening, crowded rock concert. Which one seems like an easier place to have an important conversation with friends, to call out to someone far away, or even to hear yourself think?

It’s a rhetorical question, of course. But a similarly upsetting change is going on right now in Arctic waters.

Thanks to its landscapes of sound-absorbing ice, the Arctic has been one of the world’s least-disturbed ocean environments for centuries, filled only with the natural sounds of marine life. But in the past six years, that serenity has been radically altered by anthropogenic noise — and the marine mammals who live there are struggling to communicate.

A doubling of noise levels

A report by the Arctic Council, supported by research from Applied Ocean Sciences, DW-Ship Consult and the WWF Arctic Programme, found that from 2013 to 2019, underwater noise in the Arctic more than doubled, and increased by even more than that in certain areas. The main source of this increase in noise was more shipping traffic.

Arctic marine mammals evolved to live in a dark, quiet, ice-covered Arctic. With little light penetrating the thick ice, they use sound to “see” their world as well as to navigate, hunt and find potential mates. The higher noise levels caused by ships in the area have decreased their communication ranges by half.

Researchers have also detected increased levels of stress hormones in the species they have studied.

The Arctic’s soundscape is unique because of its cold surface water temperatures and relatively shallow basin, both of which help sound to travel extremely long distances near the surface, where marine mammals come up to breathe. Because of this, just a few ships can greatly increase noise levels throughout the Arctic Circle. For comparison, in a tropical environment, the noise would quickly dissipate.

Not all Arctic marine mammals use the same acoustic frequency (or speed of vibration of sound), and not all frequencies have increased at the same problematic rate. But there is a high degree of overlap between the frequency ranges of ships and of Arctic marine mammals.

In other words, the Arctic is getting louder at the exact same acoustic frequency that many marine mammals use to communicate.

How science can inform policy

To inform policies that will have the power to mitigate the effects of increased shipping noise, scientists must first identify the habitats of the most vulnerable marine mammals where noise has increased significantly. They will then have to measure the specific biological and ecological effects of increased noise pollution on more Arctic marine mammals.

They also have to better monitor noise sources in the Arctic and predict how marine mammals will respond as climate change continues to be a sad and worsening reality in the region. Policymakers should use this information to better manage shipping in the region to protect the majestic, vulnerable animals who live there.

Melting ice is one of the most obvious signs of global climate change in the Arctic. As it continues, new shipping routes will open up and existing routes will stay open for longer than ever.

More ships will mean more underwater noise, more emissions and collisions —  and big problems for Arctic marine ecosystems and the marine mammals who call them home.

We must act quickly to manage the increase in Arctic shipping to protect the soundscape for these important animals — before it is too late.

‌Add your voice to tell Canada we need a strong strategy to stop the spread of underwater noise pollution.

This article originally appeared in the WWF Global Arctic Programme publication, The Circle

Ship speed and waste dumping are ‘urgent’ threats in Great Bear Sea

This looped image shows critical and important habitat (in yellow and orange) for at-risk whale populations overlayed with both ship speed and discharge data that was visualized as part of the WWF-Canada report (in purple and blue). © Chris Liang / WWF-Canada and Iva Kezic

‌Between an almost-complete liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal in Kitimat, B.C., expansion projects underway in the already-busy Port of Prince Rupert, massive commercial vessels moving global goods, and popular passenger cruise routes running the length of the scenic Inside Passage, the whales in the increasingly crowded and polluted Great Bear Sea are facing a growing number of risks.
 
This is why a new WWF-Canada analysis is mapping just how high risk some whale and other cetacean habitat in this area, also known as the Northern Shelf Bioregion, is becoming. This report further bolsters our efforts to get government and industry to impose stricter regulations to prevent “unsustainable” losses — that is, whale deaths that outpace their ability to repopulate.
 
A previous WWF-Canada study confirmed that ship strike deaths are projected to dramatically increase with LNG ship traffic in the region, which would result in a 230 per cent increase in fin whale deaths and a 390 per cent increase in humpback deaths over the terminal’s 40-year lifespan. And WWF-Canada’s 2022 report on vessel waste nationwide confirmed that the many billions of litres of waste dumped annually in Canadian coastal waters contain pollutants that can cause serious health problems in whales, fish and invertebrates.
 
Our latest analysis combined these studies for the entire bioregion — 102,000 square kilometres from north Vancouver Island up B.C.’s Central Coast, North Coast and west to Haida Gwaii — to determine the correlation between dangerously fast ship speeds and waste in critical and important whale habitat.
 
By mapping where high speeds and waste volumes overlap with critical whale habitat, it identified areas of highest risk for whales so we can better understand where regulations and other mitigation measures would be most effective.
 
The results show a clear argument for why and where new rules are needed now.
 
Data showed that in 2022, almost 90 per cent of ship routes in the region — tankers, ferries, cruise ships and other commercial vessels — travelled through critical whale habitat. Of those vessels, a staggering 97.8 per cent travelled at average speeds of more than 10 knots. Considering that vessel speeds between 9 and 20 knots are known to increase the probability of a strike being lethal from 20 per cent to 100 per cent, the danger to whales is obvious, and it’s increasing.
 
On top of this risk, the report found that the coastal waters with the highest concentration of ships travelling more than 10 knots were also where waste volumes were highest — to the tune of 56 billion litres in 2022 alone. The combination of lethally fast ships and contaminant-laden dumping practices makes for particularly hostile habitat for at-risk whale species like killer whales, blue whales, fin whales and humpbacks.
 
The report makes key recommendations for addressing these threats and calls on government and industry to impose stricter regulations on ship speeds, routes and waste-generating practices.
 
For more information, you can read the report here.

‌Kathrin Majic, SVP Development, WWF-Canada, moderating a session at GLOBE Forum 2024 in Vancouver on business and biodiversity with speakers Paul Fletcher, Chief corporate affairs officer at Aviva Canada, Emma Race, Senior director, Sustainability & Social Impact at Loblaw Companies Ltd., and Daniel O’Brien, Partner, Sustainable strategy and transformation, PwC Canada © Laurence C. Desrosiers / WWF-Canada

‌What role does the business community play in addressing the growing biodiversity crisis? It’s a question being asked more and more in boardrooms across Canada, as companies come to grips with how much they affect — as well as rely on — nature.

Now there’s help. Earlier this month, WWF-Canada and Aviva Canada launched Business and Biodiversity: Your Company’s Path Towards Nature Positivity, a new action plan for corporate Canada.

We sat down with Kathrin Majic, WWF-Canada's Senior VP of Development, to discuss how businesses can use it, and why it matters.

What exactly is this action plan?

In short, it’s a resource to help Canadian businesses across industries take action to combat biodiversity loss. It provides important context about why they need to do this, and it offers a set of practical and impactful steps they can take to accelerate their journey towards nature positivity. We’ve included things they can do inside their own operations and beyond, in the immediate term and in the future. We like to think of it as a sort of to-do list for companies that want to help halt and reverse biodiversity loss.

Why is this action plan needed now?

First, we know that our planet is facing a crisis of biodiversity loss. Monitored wildlife populations have declined by an average of nearly 70 per cent since 1970. Every second, Earth loses a hockey rink and a half’s worth of habitat. We’re losing crucial nature, and fast.

Second, we know that the biodiversity crisis has direct economic consequences. Half of global GDP is highly dependent on healthy ecosystems. Nature-related risks to companies now total more than $1.9 trillion. More and more, stakeholders expect companies to actively contribute to a healthy natural world.

Finally, we know that businesses need help. So much of the conversation on how businesses can help the environment centres on reducing carbon emissions, which is vitally important in taking on the climate crisis.

But biodiversity loss can be tougher to fit onto a ledger or into a strategic plan. It can be tricky to measure a company’s impacts and dependencies on the natural world. And it can be confusing to know how to take action to make things better.

What excites you the most about this action plan?

One thing that really stands out to me is that this isn’t just a list of chores. Yes, companies interested in transforming their biodiversity footprint should expect to have to do some work. But there’s also a great business case for them doing so. Acting now will cost them a lot less — half as much, by some estimates — than putting things off. It will make them more resilient and better prepared to adapt to changing disclosure and reporting standards.

And if we want to be very blunt about it, they’ll be likelier to reap competitive and reputational advantages from being ahead of the crowd. So that’s what stands out to me: prioritizing nature really is just good business.