Work

Characterization and Automated Classification of Underwater Acoustic Environments in the Western Black Sea Using Machine Learning Techniques

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Growing concern over anthropogenic underwater noise, highlighted by initiatives like the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and its Technical Group on Underwater Noise (TG Noise), emphasizes regions like the Western Black Sea, where increasing activities threaten marine habitats. This region is experiencing rapid growth in maritime traffic and resource exploitation, which is intensifying concerns over the noise impacts on its unique marine habitats. While machine learning offers promising solutions, a research gap persists in comprehensively evaluating diverse ML models within an integrated framework for complex underwater acoustic data, particularly concerning real-world data limitations like class imbalance. This paper addresses this by presenting a multi-faceted framework using passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) data from fixed locations (50–100 m depth). Acoustic data are processed using advanced signal processing (broadband Sound Pressure Level (SPL), Power Spectral Density (PSD)) for feature extraction (Mel-spectrograms for deep learning; PSD statistical moments for classical/unsupervised ML). The framework evaluates Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Random Forest, and Support Vector Machines (SVMs) for noise event classification, alongside Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs) for anomaly detection. Our results demonstrate that the CNN achieved the highest classification accuracy of 0.9359, significantly outperforming Random Forest (0.8494) and SVM (0.8397) on the test dataset. These findings emphasize the capability of deep learning in automatically extracting discriminative features, highlighting its potential for enhanced automated underwater acoustic monitoring.

Source: Journal of Marine Science and Engineering

DOI: 10.3390/jmse13071352

Author: Maria Emanuela Mihailov

Institution: Institutul Naţional de Cercetare Dezvoltare Marină Grigore Antipa

Language: English

Topic: Underwater Acoustics Research

Subfield: Oceanography

Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Life below water

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,137