ECOMMAS is a long-term, on-going study into how underwater noise generated by offshore industry impacts the distribution of dolphins and porpoises in the Scottish North Sea.
Acoustic recorders (C-PODs and SM2Ms) are deployed at 30 sites across 10 locations along the east coast. They record underwater noise and count echolocation clicks to measure dolphin and porpoise presence and absence. They are deployed in the spring and are recovered after ~ 4 months. In 2015 and 2016, a second deployment was issued in July/August.
Data is presented as detection-positive days (DPD) and detection-positive hours (DPH) for both species.
DPD = The detection of echolocation clicks per day
(1 = Detection-positive, 0 = Detection-negative)
DPH = The number of hours echolocation clicks are detected per day
Nall = Total number of clicks detected per day
Ndays = Total number of days recorded
PorpDPH_median = Median porpoise detection-positive hours for each site
DolDPH_median = Median dolphin detection-positive hours for each site
Proportion_PorpDPD = Proportion of porpoise detection-positive days (out of total days recorded, Ndays)
Proportion_DolDPD = Proportion of dolphin detection-positive days (out of total days recorded, Ndays)
Data has been prepared as ArcGIS maps showing median DPH and proportion of DPD for both species across all 30 sites. It has also been converted to be viewed on the NMPi, and for direct download as a spread sheet (.csv)