Global Sounds: Low-Cost Hydrophone Project officially endorsed by the UN Ocean Decade as a Decade Action!

Submitted by eurban on Tue, 04/15/2025 - 19:05

We’re proud to share that our Global Sounds: Low-Cost Hydrophone Project has been officially endorsed by the UN Ocean Decade as a Decade Action!

This IQOE initiative is designed to make underwater sound monitoring more accessible and inclusive, by developing affordable, open-source hydrophones for research, education, and community science worldwide. Sound is a critical component of healthy marine ecosystems — and by democratising access to acoustic monitoring tools, we aim to empower a global network of users to better understand and protect our oceans.

A big thank you to all our collaborators and supporters. Together, we’re listening to the ocean — and amplifying its voice.

From Lucille Chapuis, Chair, IQOE Task Team on Low-Cost Hydrophones for Research, Education, and Citizen Science

Status

IQOE is in its last year as a 10-year project and continues to implement of its Science Plan (available here). IQOE has successfully coordinated a variety of activities in ocean acoustics and bioacoustics through IQOE working groups on the use of acoustics to assess biodiversity, the importance of acoustic observations in the Arctic Ocean, standards for reporting ocean acoustic and bioacoustic data for IQOE, software for making acoustic observations comparable worldwide, and recommendations for implementation of an Ocean Sound Essential Ocean Variable for the Global Ocean Observing System. IQOE progress has been documented since June 2018 through IQOE Newsletters and since the beginning of the project through other products. IQOE identified 2020 as the Year of the Quiet Ocean because of evidence that ocean sound decreased because of decreases in human activities in the ocean due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Next Steps

Activities in 2024 will include actions to help implement the Ocean Sound Essential Ocean Variable Implementation Plan; continuation of new activities on low-cost ocean acoustic observing systems and expansion of the Open Portal to Underwater Sound (OPUS), implementation of the Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds, sponsorship of the second World Ocean Passive Acoustic Monitoring Day; and meetings of IQOE working groups and Science Committee.