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Visualizing Marine Soundscapes for Marine Resource Managers and the General Public: Data Visualization Website Developed Using Human-Centered Design Principles and Interdisciplinary Collaboration
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  • Yueyi Che,
  • Anmol Parande,
  • Audrey Kuptz,
  • Leena Elzeiny,
  • Edgar Rojo,
  • Sindhu Goli,
  • Justin Hogenauer,
  • Choyang Ponsar,
  • Sara Kopunova,
  • Anne Simonis
Yueyi Che
University of California, Berkeley

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Anmol Parande
University of California Berkeley
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Audrey Kuptz
University of California Berkeley
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Leena Elzeiny
University of California Berkeley
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Edgar Rojo
University of California Berkeley
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Sindhu Goli
University of California Berkeley
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Justin Hogenauer
University of California Berkeley
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Choyang Ponsar
University of California Berkeley
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Sara Kopunova
University of California Berkeley
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Anne Simonis
NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center
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Abstract

Understanding marine soundscapes, including the biological, anthropogenic, and geological sounds, is essential to conserving protected species and their habitats. However, the marine resource managers often do not have a strong science background to interpret complicated soundscape data to facilitate them making decisions. The biological components of soundscapes can be useful to characterize biodiversity and monitor the distribution and behavior of individual species. Anthropogenic sound in the ocean is increasing and has been recognized as a threat to marine mammals for decades. To help the marine resource managers and the general public understand the impacts of ocean noise, we as nine undergraduate students from different majors of study at UC Berkeley’s Fung Fellowship Program utilized Human-Centered Design and created an interactive marine soundscape map (https://calsound.herokuapp.com), focusing on the California Current Ecosystem. Based on 14 interviews we conducted with researchers, policymakers, and environmental lobbyists, we decided to portray spectral soundscape metrics alongside the context of animal and human activities in a map format. We then created a digital hub to easily visualize, analyze, and synthesize marine-sourced soundscape data. Our website displays soundscape data over a range of spatial and temporal scales, acoustic detections of marine mammals, species habitat models, and anthropogenic sound source distributions as heat map layers and graphs. The platform not only displays ocean soundscape data, but also provides an overview of marine soundscape technology, as well as related articles and websites. The website is designed so that users who are not familiar with marine soundscape data, such as coastal managers and the public, can guide themselves through a tutorial and explore on their own to gain a better understanding of oceanographic sound. In the future, we will add more features to the website, such as allowing users to upload their own data to the website to visualize them online. The website will be self-sustainable and continue to serve more people. Our website will facilitate people to visualize and understand marine soundscapes, their impacts and our solutions.