CETACUSTIC is a study of the interaction between cruise tourism and cetaceans present in the protected environment of the port of Cartagena and a proposal for actions to minimise the acoustic impact of this activity.

The Regional Confederation of Business Organizations of Murcia (CROEM) was for the first time a beneficiary in the 2017 Call for Grants with the project “CETACUSTIC: Study of the interaction between cruise tourism and cetaceans present in the protected environment of the port of Cartagena and proposal of actions to minimize the acoustic impact of this activity”. Its purpose has been to to contribute to improving knowledge about the impacts derived from cruise tourism on the species of cetaceans present in the environment of the port of Cartagena, and to propose guidelines to minimize these impacts and make tourism activity compatible with the protection of cetaceans.

In this work, a processing of the acoustic recordings obtained from the entry and exit maneuvers of tourist cruises in the Port of Cartagena has been carried out. After preprocessing, the recorded sound was characterized in time and frequency. In this way, the actual contribution of the noise produced by the ship can be better assessed. In addition, the relevant parameters for the estimation of the impact of noise on cetaceans were obtained.

The information of the results obtained has been carried out through: (1) The characterization of the underwater noise produced by the four selected cruise ships during their activity in the Port of Cartagena. (2) The estimated assessment of the possible impacts that cruise tourism may have on cetaceans.
The following results can be derived from this characterization and evaluation:
(1)The sound source due to the cruises considered does not exceed, in any case, the limits found in the literature relating to changes in behaviour (flight) or temporary or permanent physical damage (TTS and PTS). (2) Only a certain masking impact is certified, because the frequencies of the sound of the cruise overlap with part of the frequencies used by cetaceans to communicate, hunt, and perform location and navigation tasks: mainly in low and medium frequencies (LF and MF cetaceans).

To reduce the potential impact of masking, a simple and feasible strategic measure has been suggested that has proven effective: reducing ship speeds. The reduction of this speed brings with it two direct effects of reducing masking: the increase in the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the reduction of cavitation.