Clemens Pitschke

• Noise in the oceans is a constantly increasing factor. The growing industrialisation due to shipping, offshore wind parks, seismic studies and other anthropogenic noise is putting the eco system under immense stress. The focus of this thesis is on the assessment of continuous underwater noise from ships. Based on existing strategies in air as well as underwater and a comparison of both an alternative strategy for the assessment of con-tinuous noise from ships is given. The concept developed is based on published, scien-tifically observed responses of animals to ship passes with an indication of an effect range. A model is created to describe the strategy using publicly available data for cargo ships as an example. The results are summarized in maps depicting the affected area for an MRU of the OSPAR II region and the MPA “Borkum Riffgrund”. The strategy is discussed and evaluated on the basis of these results. From this, further improvements and the need for additional information in publicly available data on vessel traffic are derived.