Our MELO project vision is a world in which ships are no longer a threat, but instead are a sympathetic and constructive member of the ocean biosphere. We are developing the building blocks to realize this future and we’d like your help.

Project Details

The MELO project is jointly led by the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Marine Mammal Research Unit at the University of British Columbia. It is a Transport Canada-funded project to develop smart, adaptive solutions to underwater noise from vessels. The objective of the project is to develop a physics-based machine learning toolbox to predict noise from distributed sources and then, based on an understanding of the sensitivity of marine mammals to noise, to demonstrate its application as an adaptive vessel-based noise mitigation strategy for marine vessels in operation.

Workshop Details

As part our MELO project, this design workshop has been organized to develop solutions for the elimination of ship-source underwater noise disturbance of marine mammals. The workshop brings together experts in marine mammal behavior, ocean sound propagation and ship design in a two-day session on the UBC campus on the 1st and 2nd of June to work on this problem together.

There will be speakers whose work is focused on topics such as

• Marine mammal behavior and the impact of underwater noise

• Noise measurement and propagation analysis

• Ship design and noise mitigation measures

The workshop is planned as an in-person event. On Day 1 of the workshop, speakers from a variety of disciplines will present on their research or field of interest, with time afterwards for discussion and questions with the group. On Day 2 of the workshop, there will be a collaborative design session facilitated by an external design-thinking professional, who will assist the group in mapping out the interactions between the different systems that contribute to and are impacted by ship-source underwater noise. As an outcome of the workshop, a report with a summary of the discussions and visuals from the design session will be provided to the workshop attendees.

Date: Thursday June 1st, 2023 (9 am – 5 pm) and Friday June 2nd, 2023 (9am – 1pm)

Location: UBC’s Earth Sciences Building, Room 5104, 2207 Main Mall, UBC

Affordable accommodation options at UBC can be found here: https://suitesatubc.com/

If you have any questions about the workshop, contact Tessa Coulthard at tessa.coulthard@clearseas.org.

Registrations are closed

MELO Project Design Workshop