Simultaneous tracking of a vessel and marine mammal from a distributed acoustic sensing enabled telecommunications fiber: A case study

Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) provides opportunities for long-term and large-scale monitoring of underwater environments. These data are of ecological significance and can contribute to behavioral assessments of marine mammals, reducing negative interactions with shipping due to exposure, disturbance or impact. This case study demonstrates the simultaneous tracking of a marine mammal and a vessel using DAS-enabled telecommunications cables deployed in a coastal inlet of the Svalbard Archipelago, over several hours. The system captured the distinct acoustic signatures of the whale's vocalizations and vessel noise attributed to the engine and cavitation, with marine mammal scale spatial resolution and high temporal fidelity. Signal processing techniques including adaptive DFT beamforming were applied to isolate and classify these sources, revealing detailed movement patterns, which may in the future be used as a proxy for behavior. The results highlight the DAS system’s ability to contribute to behavioral ecology studies, maritime traffic management, and mitigation of anthropogenic impacts on marine life in an environment. Potential challenges to future real-time implementation are identified and discussed.