Monthly Archives: April 2021

Understanding Underwater Sounds: Evaluating Risks of Human Activities

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Commercial shipping density (red lines).
Credit: B.S. Halpern (T. Hengl; D. Groll) /  / 

A guest post by Andrew McQueen, US Army Corps of Engineers

Researchers around the world are focusing more on the role of anthropogenic (human-made) sounds in marine ecosystems. In the last half century, as we have industrialized and expanded our use of the “blue” ocean economy (maritime transport, fisheries, and renewable energy), some regions have observed incremental increases of anthropogenic underwater sounds. However, the ecological consequences, or risks, of these changing underwater soundscapes remain largely unknown.

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Lost Wilderness: Restoring both Habitat and Animal Species

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Photo credit: , CC BY 2.0.

By Roberta Attanasio, IEAM Blog Editor

A month after the death of Henry David Thoreau, The Atlantic “Walking,” which “extolled the virtues of immersing oneself in nature and lamented the inevitable encroachment of private ownership upon the wilderness.” It included Thoreau’s famous line “In wildness is the preservation of the world”—eight powerful words that played a major role in saving places such as Yosemite and Cape Cod from human-caused environmental destruction, inspiring the creation of the US National Parks system. Upon signing the US Wilderness Act in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson : “If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.” Continue reading →