Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00930:reg:2:p25
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00930
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 2 (pt 25/48)
Character Range: 129852–133120

other risks such as entanglement, predation, collisions and pollution. Associated industrial activities in the coastal zone may also reduce habitat within BIAs.

     3.3.2      Infrastructure/offshore development
Offshore development is largely associated with the production of energy and addressing Australia's energy demands, and includes infrastructure related to extraction of fossil fuels (e.g., oil and gas platforms) and production of offshore renewable energy. Potential impacts on habitat that can lead to degradation can occur in the various stages of the development, including exploration, infrastructure installation, operation, and de-commissioning. An emergent market now in Australia is offshore renewable energy, involving using offshore wind, waves, and tidal power in coastal and offshore waters. With the introduction of the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Act 2021 to facilitate and regulate the development of electricity infrastructure in Commonwealth waters, there is expected to be substantial increases in the development of offshore renewable energy facilities and infrastructure in coastal and offshore waters. Offshore development, including installation of infrastructure, could lead to disturbance of southern right whales, and may act as barriers to migration into coastal breeding areas.

   3.4         Anthropogenic underwater noise
Anthropogenic underwater noise is recognised as having a potentially significant impact on marine animals, and in particular marine mammals, because they rely on sound for basic life functions such as communication (including for mating), navigation, foraging, and predator avoidance. Their dependence on sound for their survival makes them sensitive to anthropogenic noise, which can affect the health and fitness of individuals, and can ultimately result in population level effects (Erbe et al. 2018). Anthropogenic underwater noise is categorised as impulsive noise types (e.g., pile driving and seismic airguns) or non-impulsive noise types (e.g., shipping), that can be of short (i.e., transient) or longer duration (i.e., chronic). These may have impacts on marine mammals ranging from physiological stress, temporary behavioural responses/disturbance and acoustic interference (i.e., masking) to auditory impairment (e.g., temporary threshold shift or permanent threshold shift), which includes acoustic injury (Southall et al. 2007, Southall et al. 2019). Growing evidence demonstrates that the probability of a behavioural response involves various factors, which includes the received levels that animals are exposed, the animals behavioural state, and the nature and novelty of the sound (Ellison et al. 2012). The following sections focus on the main types of activities that produce impulsive and non-impulsive sounds that southern right whales will most likely encounter.
Impacts to marine mammals from anthropogenic underwater noise can be assessed using noise exposure criteria, which considers that marine mammals vary in hearing sensitivity and underwater noise in certain frequency ranges may impact marine mammal taxa differently (Southall et al. 2019). Much of the research attention on determining impact and threshold levels for regulation has focused on single exposure