What is noise pollution?  

Noise pollution is any “unwanted or disturbing” sound, which can lead to adverse effects for both humans and wildlife.   

Noise pollution can originate from many anthropogenic sources, including roadways, construction, ship traffic, sonar surveys, oil and gas exploration, underwater drilling, and more.  

Effects of noise pollution 

For people, noise can lead to a variety of health issues, including high blood pressure, elevated stress levels, hearing loss, and reduced sleep. These can in turn lead to behavioral and mental health problems, with noise exposure being linked to higher levels of depression and anxiety.  

These effects hold true for wildlife as well. Noise can cause animals to suffer from hearing loss and chronic stress, impeding their survival and reproductive capabilities.  

Many animals rely on auditory cues to communicate with each other, initiate breeding, detect predators and more. When a blanket of background noise “masks” these auditory cues, it can interfere with migration patterns, hinder reproductive success, and even affect the health of adults and their young.   

For example, birds living in environments with constant noise were found to have lower hatching rates, with smaller and less developed hatchlings.  

Impacts to marine environments

Sound travels over four times faster in the water than it does in the air, which means that underwater noise can have even farther-reaching implications for marine life.  

In marine environments, noise from shipping vessels, underwater drilling, sonar activities, and seismic surveying has increased significantly in modern times. Since the 1960s, underwater noise has increased by at least 10 decibels off the coast of Southern California. Over the span of just six years, between 2013 and 2019, underwater shipping noise doubled at some locations in the Arctic. In the Gulf, deep water noise is dominated by air gun pulses, which are used in seismic exploration for oil and gas.  

But what does this mean for wildlife? For animals that rely on echolocation as a form of communication, such as dolphins and whales, excessive underwater noise can cause disorientation and lead to mass strandings. It also impedes communication among individuals–humpback whales have been documented to stop singing before and after ships pass by.  

There is evidence that organisms as small as zooplankton are also affected. Seismic survey air guns can more than double the number of dead zooplankton in a one-kilometer range. Zooplankton are essential to the productivity of marine ecosystems, nourishing commercial fisheries and entire food webs of fish and marine mammals. Negative impacts for these small creatures could mean radiating effects for countless other marine animals.  

What can you do?  

To protect yourself against noise pollution and its adverse effects, consider wearing ear protection during noisy activities, such as concerts.  

To help reduce the noise pollution in the environment for people and wildlife, you can: 

  • Opt for less noisy forms of transportation, such as riding a bike, when possible.
  • Plant trees and native plants in your yard or neighborhood to create natural sound buffers.  

But most importantly, educate others about noise pollution! Advocate for solutions in your community that can help reduce noise. This could include switching to bike and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure and increasing protections for natural wildlife habitats.  

 

Information from NOAA, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and Protection of the Arctic Environment.

Citations for scientific articles used:

  1. Erbe, C., Reichmuth, C., Cunningham, K., Lucke, K., & Dooling, R. (2016). Communication masking in marine mammals: A review and research strategy. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 103(1-2). Pages 15-38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.12.007 
  2. Hahad, O., Kuntic, M., Al-Kindi, S. et al. Noise and mental health: evidence, mechanisms, and consequences. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 35, 16–23 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41370-024-00642-5 
  3. Kleist, N.J., Guralnick, R.P., Cruz, A., Lowry, C.A., & Francis, C.D. (2017). Chronic anthropogenic noise disrupts glucocorticoid signaling and has multiple effects on fitness in an avian community. PNAS, 115(4). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1709200115 
  4. McCauley, R., Day, R., Swadling, K., Fitzgibbon, Q.P., Watson, R.A., & Semmens, J.M. (2017). Widely used marine seismic survey air gun operations negatively impact zooplankton. Nat Ecol Evol 1, 0195  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0195 
  5. Simonis, A.E., Brownell, R.L, Thayre, B.J., Trickey, J.S., Oleson, E.M., Huntington, R., & Baumann-Pickering, S. (2020). Co-occurrence of beaked whale strandings and naval sonar in the Mariana Islands, Western Pacific. The Royal Society Publishing, 287(1921). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.0070 
  6.  Tsujii, K., Akamatsu, T., Okamoto, R., Mori, K., Mitani, Y., & Umeda, N. (2018). Change in singing behavior of humpback whales caused by shipping noise. PLOS One, 13(10). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0204112 
  7. Wiggins, S.M., Hall, J.M., Thayre, B.J., & Hildebrand, J.A. (2016). Gulf of Mexico low-frequency ocean soundscape impacted by airguns. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 140. Pages 176-183. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4955300