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The International Maritime Organization (IMO), as a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for the safety and security of international shipping and the prevention of pollution from ships, has applied two main area-based management tools (ABMTs): the "Special Areas" established under the MARPOL 73/78; and the "Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas" (PSSAs) established under the IMO resolutions. The new Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ agreement) stipulates the establishment of a comprehensive system of ABMTs to conserve and sustainably use areas beyond national jurisdiction. Strengthening coordination in the use of ABMTs established by the IMO and the BBNJ Agreement is important for vessel pollution control in the high seas. The IMO is a stakeholder for relevant proposals and consultations on proposals regarding the establishment of ABMTs in the BBNJ Agreements, and can provide information on the implementation of them. The Conference of the Parties (COPs) to the BBNJ Agreement can also make recommendations to the IMO and its parties to promote the adoption of special areas and PSSAs. This article respectively elaborates on the practices and effect of ABMTs of the IMO and explores the relevant rules of the BBNJ agreement and their enforcement. Then this article discusses the possible approaches for the ABMTs coordination between the IMO and the BBNJ agreement regimes and their implications on vessel pollution Control in the high seas. Overall, relevant rules of the BBNJ agreement shall be interpreted and applied in a manner that does not undermine relevant legal instruments of the IMO. Meanwhile, it is necessary to promote cooperation and coordination between the COPs to the BBNJ Agreement and the IMO under the idea of conserving ecosystem integrity, gradually forming a normal cooperation and informati

Under strict resource and environmental constraints, improving the overall green efficiency of the industrial chain is crucial to the sustainable development of the marine ship industry. Based on the data of 40 listed companies in the industry chain from 2015 to 2019, the meta-frontier framework and three-stage epsilon based measure (EBM) model are employed to study the green technical efficiency (GTE) in each link of the industry chain and the technical gap between each link. The impact of the external environment on GTE, the main reasons hindering the development of GTE, and the ways to improve GTE are also discussed for policy reference. The results show that: (1) under the meta-frontier, the GTEs of the whole industry chain and the composed links are all high and rising year by year. (2) There are obvious green technological development gaps among the links of the industry chain. The GTEs are ranked as the upstream>the downstream>the midstream. (3) The inefficiencies of green technology (GTEI) in the upstream and downstream of the industry chain come from endogenous hindrance, while the GTEI of the midstream is due to exogenous hindrance. (4) The external environment has a significant influence on the development of GTE in the industrial chain. Highly open and innovative external environment can effectively reduce the input redundancy. (5) After eliminating the external influencing factors and random interferences, the actual GTE of the industrial chain is only 0.4 or so, with more serious imbalance among the three links. Therefore, it is important for the marine ship industry chain to optimize the allocation of innovation resources and cultivate an open and shared innovation environment.

A significant increase in the human population on marine coast and steady growth of maritime water transport causes the construction of port infrastructure and the creation of new lands, which affects the ecosystems of coastal waters. Despite the widespread occurrence of such large-scale engineering projects in coastal areas, their impact on various components of aquatic ecosystems, including phytoplankton, is still poorly understood. The aim of the study was to assess the effect of the construction of ports and the alluvium of new lands in the Neva Estuary in 2000s on the productivity of phytoplankton. Digging and dredging of bottom sediments results in one order of magnitude elevation of suspended particulate matter (SM), which mostly consisted of sand and clayed deposits and in significant decrease water transparency, as compared to the average long-term values. Concentrations of total phosphorus in the estuarine waters during the works significantly positively correlated with the concentrations of SM. However, the multiple increase in nutrients was less important for phytoplankton development than expected. Analysis of variance and stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that the main predictor of the primary production of plankton in the periods of construction was water transparency. Gross primary production decreased significantly. In contrast to short-term effects caused by wind-induced events, which often stimulated phytoplankton development, long-term construction works of new port facilities negatively influenced phytoplankton productivity. Apart from pristine conditions when the phosphorus concentration was the main factor limiting the primary production in the estuary, the main limiting factor during long-term engineering projects became water transparency. Taking into account plans for further development of ports in coastal areas around the world, the influence of the large-scale engineering projects on the conditions for the development of phyto

With the opening of the national carbon trading market and the coming of the post-epidemic era, the government actively promotes the carbon quota policy to fundamentally achieve carbon emission reduction. This paper corresponds the shipping cycle to the shipping market demand situation during the epidemic, incorporates the shipping cycle characteristics and government quota characteristics into a multi-stage evolutionary game model. Later, the study analyzes the equilibrium points of the game parties at each stage and finally investigates the influence of factors such as technological improvement on the strategy choice of shipping enterprises through sensitivity analysis. The study found that the government's carbon quota policy is influenced by shipping market demand. During the peak shipping season, the government's quota policy is binding on shipping enterprises. In the low season of shipping, the binding effect of government's quota policy on shipping enterprises will be reduced, or even appear to be invalid. Therefore, the government should forecast the demand situation of the shipping market, gradually relax the regulation during the peak season of shipping, and strengthen the regulation before the low season of shipping. Shipping enterprises should increase the research and development of carbon emission reduction technology to reduce carbon emissions from the root to realize the sustainable development of ports and marine-related industries in the post-epidemic era.

Emission trading is an efficient measure to combat climate change, which is one of the biggest threats to the international community and human health. The shipping industry has previously been considered an energy-saving industry but the growth rate of its emissions far exceeds that of other industries. On 10 May 2023, the EU enacted Regulation (EU) 2023/957, which officially included the shipping industry in the EU-ETS. Therefore, this may lead to investor-state disputes regarding emission trading in the marine industry due to the conflicts between the obligation to combat climate change and the obligation to protect investments of the host states. This has resulted in the breaching of International Investment Agreements. In this context, this study aimed to propose practical recommendations for global marine market practitioners to avoid the potential risks of disputes by reflecting on the existing practice regarding climate change-related investor-state dispute resolutions and identifying the trends and problems of the current dispute resolution mechanism. These included inconsistency in the review standard, inconsistency in the review scope, and broad interpretation by the tribunal. Finally, this study proposed that by setting public purpose and exception clauses in the preambles of the International Investment Agreements and incorporating the specific obligations of the foreign investors and the regulatory power of the hosting states in the drafting stage, the potential risks for disputes regarding the new EU directive in the global marine industry could be effectively reduced.

As part of the progressive process of extending spatial plans to cover an increasing number of marine areas, with the aim of objectively balancing the interests of various users of the marine area, it has become necessary to establish the value of marine areas as a yardstick or determinant of the user group for which a given marine area is of greater value. This study seeks to fill a research gap by attempting to develop a method to calculate the value of marine areas for the commercial shipping industry. This is done to make it possible in the future to prepare the ground for policy regulating the spatial rent of the sea, whose most important users are shipowners and their ships. We use the homogeneous basin of the Polish Marine Areas (PMA) in the Baltic Sea. Based on a literature review, we conclude that such a method does not exist, posing a significant challenge in the process of marine/maritime spatial planning (MSP) and maritime policy formulation. Conducting an in-depth analysis of 2020 data on ship traffic in the basin noted above, combined with a financial analysis of shipowners' operating costs and profitability indicators, we can determine the value of marine areas both in aggregate for all shipping in the studied basin and for each of the five segments of shipping - the bulk cargo, ro-ro cargo, container, tanker, and passenger segments. In addition, through a dynamic analysis of ship traffic, it is possible to determine the value of sea area in Polish seawaters per unit of area (1 km²) at the average level and for the five specified market segments. The obtained values show that the total profits of shipowners in the Polish Marine Areas, which are at the level of more than EUR 103 million per year, and the average value of profits per 1 km² of marine area used by a ship provide future decision-makers with an objective point of reference to shape future policies for the fiscalization of public space, including the sea.

Under the low-carbon background, 37 ports of countries along the South China Sea with capacity ranking in the world's top 100 container ports are selected as the research object to establish a shipping network, construct a directed dichotomous shipping network, and divide the port tiers after finding the kernel number by using kernel analysis method, respectively, to explore the relationship between tiers and the relationship between ports at the higher level, and then make clear the direction of the improvement for the reduction of carbon emissions. The results show that: the routes sent between container ports in countries along the South China Sea have formed a more stable connection, but the receiving routes are still in a passive position, and the port call relationship is affected by the port hierarchy. High-level ports such as Shanghai Port and Singapore Port undertake the transshipment function of cargo concentration and redistribution within the network. The small-world characteristics among ports such as Singapore Port, Ningbo Port, Haiphong Port, Shenzhen Port, Guangzhou Port, and Linchaban Port are obvious. Based on the results of the empirical analysis, corresponding suggestions are put forward to optimize the structure of the container port system in the countries along the South China Sea and promote the low-carbon development of the sea.

Visual detection technology is essential for an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) to perceive the surrounding environment; it can determine the spatial position and category of the object, which provides important environmental information for path planning and collision prevention of the USV. During a close-in reconnaissance mission, it is necessary for a USV to swiftly navigate in a complex maritime environment. Therefore, an object detection algorithm used in USVs should have high detection s peed and accuracy. In this paper, a YOLOv5 lightweight object detection algorithm using a Ghost module and Transformer is proposed for USVs. Firstly, in the backbone network, the original convolution operation in YOLOv5 is upgraded by convolution stacking with depth-wise convolution in the Ghost module. Secondly, to exalt feature extraction without deepening the network depth, we propose integrating the Transformer at the end of the backbone network and Feature Pyramid Network structure in the YOLOv5, which can improve the ability of feature expression. Lastly, the proposed algorithm and six other deep learning algorithms were tested on ship datasets. The results show that the average accuracy of the proposed algorithm is higher than that of the other six algorithms. In particular, in comparison with the original YOLOv5 model, the model size of the proposed algorithm is reduced to 12.24 M, the frames per second reached 138, the detection accuracy was improved by 1.3%, and the mean of average precision (0.5) reached 96.6% (from 95.3%). In the verification experiment, the proposed algorithm was tested on the ship video collected by the "JiuHang 750" USV under different marine environments. The test results show that the proposed algorithm has a significantly improved detection accuracy compared with other lightweight detection algorithms.

Since the industrial revolution the ocean has become noisier. The global increase in shipping is one of the main contributors to this. In some regions, shipping contributed to an increase in ambient noise of several decibels, especially at low frequencies (10 to 100 Hz). Such an increase can have a substantial negative impact on fish, invertebrates, marine mammals and birds interfering with key life functions (e.g. foraging, mating, resting, etc.). Consequently, engineers are investigating ways to reduce the noise emitted by vessels when designing new ships. At the same time, since the industrial revolution (starting around 1760) greenhouse gas emissions have increased the atmospheric carbon dioxide fraction x(CO2) by more than 100 μmol mol-1. The ocean uptake of approximately one third of the emitted CO2 decreased the average global surface ocean pH from 8.21 to 8.10. This decrease is modifying sound propagation, especially sound absorption at the frequencies affected by shipping noise lower than 10 kHz, making the future ocean potentially noisier. There are also other climate change effects that may influence sound propagation. Sea surface warming might alter the depth of the deep sound speed channel, ice melting could locally decrease salinity and more frequent storms and higher wind speed alter the depth of the thermocline. In particular, modification of the sound speed profile can lead to the appearance of new ducts making specific depths noisier. In addition, ice melting and the increase in seawater temperature will open new shipping routes at the poles increasing anthropogenic noise in these regions. This review aims to discuss parameters that might change in the coming decades, focusing on the contribution of shipping, climate change and economic and technical developments to the future underwater soundscape in the ocean. Examples are given, contrasting the open ocean and the shallow seas. Apart from the changes in sound propagation, this review will also d

This paper presents a geometric stochastic channel model designed for analyzing maritime communication and navigation services between moving ships using the C-band or sub-6 GHz spectrum, which aligns with the focus of emerging 5G networks on land. The channel model is validated through channel measurements conducted both on the sea and land. A software tool has been developed to integrate and analyze these measurements, which is included with this publication. The main challenge in developing the channel model for maritime services lies in the dynamic nature of the sea surface, leading to constantly changing reflection conditions due to varying reflectors and scatterers on the water. Additionally, the motion conditions of the transmitter and receiver on ships change in all three dimensions, depending on the sea state. To address these complexities, data from several measurement campaigns in diverse areas were collected. The analysis involved examining the propagation conditions over the sea with variations in sea surface roughness, antenna heights, and used bandwidths. Moreover, additional propagation conditions over nearby land were also taken into account. The study demonstrates that the changing antenna height on the ship, influenced by sea conditions, significantly affects the reflection and scattering conditions. The research aims to develop reliable, high-data rate, and broadband marine communication systems. Therefore, a measurement bandwidth of 120MHz was employed to derive the propagation model. This model not only offers absolute timing information but can also be used for time-based ranging or positioning systems. The proposed geometric stochastic channel model provides valuable insights into the complex maritime communication and navigation environment. By accounting for the continuously evolving sea surface and its impact on antenna height, the model offers a robust framework for studying and optimizing marine communication systems. The availability of

Port accessibility is an important factor in the efficiency of a port collection and distribution systems. And the carbon emission of the collection and transportation system is large, which is an important factor that cannot be ignored when constructing the collection and transportation system. In order to analyze the carbon emission characteristics of the port collection and distribution system, the paper incorporates the carbon emission factor into the accessibility measurement of the port collection and distribution system. To solve the problem of unbalanced demand of each logistics node, the distribution of logistics demand in the system is realized by the method based on the appropriate freight volume. The carbon emission cost factor is introduced, and the accessibility measurement model based on the generalized cost impedance function is constructed. Taking the collection and distribution system of Douala Port in West Africa as an example to verify, the results show that, after adding the carbon emission factor, the accessibility of each logistics node shows different degrees of decline which shows that the addition of the carbon emission factor can be more comprehensive and can reflect the accessibility of the system.

Humans have been sailing across seas and oceans for thousands of years. However, the story of large ships capable of affecting coastal ecology and shelf sedimentary processes is only about 100 years old. Modern large seagoing vessels with a draft of 10-20 m can cause resuspension of seabed sediment, erosion of the channel slope and shoal, enhancement of seafloor sediment activity and thickening of the active layer, thereby having a significant impact on seabed topography and sedimentation processes. However, little is known about the effects of this anthropogenic agent on shelf sedimentation due to limited observational data. Here, two sediment cores were collected from a shipping lane used by vessels of 5,000- to 50,000-ton off the coast of China to analyze their sedimentary properties, with focus on both the grain size and elements. It was found that ship disturbance selectively modified the sedimentary record, with the fine-grained sediment becoming increasingly unstable. In addition, there was a reduction in grain size of sediment finer than 6.25 Φ, which decreased by 11% after the disturbance by ship. Biogenic elements that were closely related to the ecological environment were significantly altered, with Br/Cl, Si/Ti, and Ca/Ti ratios all becoming significantly smaller. This indicated that frequent disturbance caused by ships had reduced the productivity in the waters near the shipping lane. In terms of sensitivity to the effects of ship navigation, the sedimentation response was relatively rapid and began to emerge from the commencement of ship navigation, whereas the ecological response became evident later than the sedimentation response and only appeared after a significant growth in the maritime transportation of China. Following the comparison of the two sediment cores, we propose that the constant rate of supply (CRS- with ship disturbance)-constant initial concentration (CIC- without ship disturbance) dual dating model be used to establish a dati

One direct consequence of Arctic warming is the expansion of navigable portions of the Arctic Ocean. As a result, vessel traffic and the accompanying threats of spills, strikes and disturbance is intensifying throughout the Arctic. In the BERING Sea, these threats to the environment, wildlife and to the people who rely on marine resources for food and cultural continuity, are acute. We examined the spatial relevance of an Area To Be Avoided (ATBA), a shipping-risk mitigation measure, established around St. Lawrence Island with respect to seabirds, as sentinel species, habitat use. We studied four seabird species (common murre Uria aalge, thick-billed murre U. lomvia, crested auklet Aethia cristatella, black-legged kittiwake Rissa tridactyla) breeding at St. Lawrence Island in the northern BERING Sea. GPS tracking data from 47 at-sea foraging trips showed that both murre species and crested auklets distributed outside the ATBA, during at least one stage of the breeding season. A larger dataset based on the birds' red blood cell isotopic signatures confirmed that for murres, the tracked individuals covered the broad niche exploited by these species. Habitat modelling further showed that the birds' most suitable marine habitats were associated with seasonal surface chlorophyll blooms, and largely extended beyond the ATBA on the shelf north of the island. Data on the murres' diet and diving behavior emphasized the importance of the shelf as a foraging habitat for these birds. We suggest that extending the ATBA to the north by only 35 km, would include areas of maximal habitat suitability. This extension would better protect seabirds, their foraging habitats and the cultural continuity of St. Lawrence Islanders, against growing threats stemming from Arctic warming.

The huge fuel consumption of shipping activities has a great impact on the ecological environment, port city environment, air quality, and residents' health. This paper uses Automatic Identification System (AIS) data records and ship-related data in 2021 coastal waters of the United States to calculate pollutant emissions from ships in 30 ports of the United States in 2021. After calculating the pollutant emissions from ships at each port, the multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) model is used to analyze the factors affecting the ship pollutant emissions. Geographically weighted regression (GWR) model is used to investigate the spatial heterogeneity of various factors affecting the characteristics of ship pollutant emissions at different scales. This paper mainly compares the effect of models of GWR and MGWR. MGWR may truly reveal the scale difference between different variables. While controlling the social and economic attributes, the coastline length, container throughput, and population are used to describe the spatial effects of ship pollutant emissions in the United States. The results denote that the distribution trend of ship pollutant emissions has a gap based on various ship types and ports. NOx accounts for the highest proportion of pollutant emissions from port ships, followed by SO₂ and CO. The impact coefficients of coastline length and population on pollutant emissions in port areas are mostly positive, indicating that the growth of coastline length and population will increase pollutant emissions in port areas, while the effect of container throughput is opposite. Relevant departments should put forward effective measures to curb NOx emission. Port managers should reasonably plan the number of ship transactions according to the coastline length of the port.

The Protocol on Environmental Protection of the Antarctic Treaty stipulates that the protection of the Antarctic environment and associated ecosystems be fundamentally considered in the planning and conducting of all activities in the Antarctic Treaty area. One of the key pollutants created by human activities in the Antarctic is noise, which is primarily caused by ship traffic (from tourism, fisheries, and research), but also by geophysical research (e.g., seismic surveys) and by research station support activities (including construction). Arguably, amongst the species most vulnerable to noise are marine mammals since they specialize in using sound for communication, navigation and foraging, and therefore have evolved the highest auditory sensitivity among marine organisms. Reported effects of noise on marine mammals in lower-latitude oceans include stress, behavioral changes such as avoidance, auditory masking, hearing threshold shifts, and-in extreme cases-death. Eight mysticete species, 10 odontocete species, and six pinniped species occur south of 60°S (i.e., in the Southern or Antarctic Ocean). For many of these, the Southern Ocean is a key area for foraging and reproduction. Yet, little is known about how these species are affected by noise. We review the current prevalence of anthropogenic noise and the distribution of marine mammals in the Southern Ocean, and the current research gaps that prevent us from accurately assessing noise impacts on Antarctic marine mammals. A questionnaire given to 29 international experts on marine mammals revealed a variety of research needs. Those that received the highest rankings were (1) improved data on abundance and distribution of Antarctic marine mammals, (2) hearing data for Antarctic marine mammals, in particular a mysticete audiogram, and (3) an assessment of the effectiveness of various noise mitigation options. The management need with the highest score was a refinement of noise exposure criteria. Environment

The Covid-19 pandemic is the latest example in a growing number of health, social, economic, and environmental crises humanity is facing. The multiple consequences of this pandemic crisis required strong responses from governments, including strict lockdowns. Yet, the impact of lockdowns on coastal ecosystems and maritime activities is still challenging to quantify over large spatial scales in comparison to the pre-Covid period. In this study, we used an object detection algorithm on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images acquired by the two Sentinel-1 satellites to assess the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the presence of boats before, during and after lockdown periods in the French Mediterranean Exclusive Economic Zone. During the French most severe lockdown period (March - May 2020), we observed that ship frequentation remained at the same level from March to July 2020, instead of rising towards the summer peak like in previous years. Then, ship frequentation increased rapidly to a normal level in August 2020 when restrictions were lifted. By comparing morning and evening (7:00 am and 7:00 pm) ship frequentation during this period to pre-Covid years, we observed contrasting patterns. On the one hand, morning detections were particularly high, while on the other hand evening detections were significantly lower and less concentrated in coastal touristic waters than in previous years. Overall, we found a 9% decrease in ship frequentation between the year 2020 and the 2017-2019 period, with a maximum of 43% drop in June 2020 due to the lockdown. So, the Covid -19 crisis induced only a very short-term reduction in maritime activities but did not markedly reduce the annual ship frequentation in the French Mediterranean waters. The satellite imagery approach is an alternative method that improves our understanding of the pandemic impacts at an unprecedented spatiotemporal scale and resolution.

The recurrence of lethal ship-whale collisions ('ship strikes') has prompted management entities across the globe to seek effective ways for reducing collision risk. Here we describe 'active whale avoidance' defined as a mariner making operational decisions to reduce the chance of a collision with a sighted whale. We generated a conceptual model of active whale avoidance and, as a proof of concept, apply data to the model based on observations of humpback whales surfacing in the proximity of large cruise ships, and simulations run in a full-mission bridge simulator and commonly used pilotage software. Application of the model demonstrated that (1) the opportunities for detecting a surfacing whale are often limited and temporary, (2) the cumulative probability of detecting one of the available 'cues' of whale's presence (and direction of travel) decreases with increased ship-to-whale distances, and (3) following detection time delays occur related to avoidance operations. These delays were attributed to the mariner evaluating competing risks (e.g., risk of whale collision vs. risk to human life, the ship, or other aspects of the marine environment), deciding upon an appropriate avoidance action, and achieving a new operational state by the ship once a maneuver is commanded. We thus identify several options for enhancing whale avoidance including training Lookouts to focus search efforts on a 'Cone of Concern,' defined here as the area forward of the ship where whales are at risk of collision based on the whale and ship's transit/swimming speed and direction of travel. Standardizing protocols for rapid communication of relevant sighting information among bridge team members can also increase avoidance by sharing information on the whale that is of sufficient quality to be actionable. We also found that, for marine pilots in Alaska, a slight change in course tends to be preferable to slowing the ship in response to a single sighted whale, owing, in part, to the substan

During winter months, humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) frequent the coastal waters of Virginia near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Located within the Bay is Naval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval military installation, and the Port of Virginia, the sixth busiest container port in the United States. These large seaports, combined with the presence of recreational boaters, commercial fishing vessels, and sport-fishing boats, result in a constant heavy flow of vessel traffic through the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and adjacent areas. From December 2015 to February 2017, 35 satellite tags were deployed on humpback whales to gain a better understanding on the occurrence, movements, site-fidelity, and overall behavior of this species within this high-traffic region. The tags transmitted data for an average of 13.7 days (range 2.7-43.8 days). Location data showed that at some point during tag deployment, nearly all whales occurred within, or in close proximity to, the shipping channels located in the study area. Approximately one quarter of all filtered and modeled locations occurred within the shipping channels. Hierarchical state-space modeling results suggest that humpback whales spend considerable time (82.0%) engaged in foraging behavior at or near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Of the 106 humpback whales photo-identified during this research, nine individuals (8.5%) had evidence of propeller strikes. One whale that had previously been tagged and tracked within shipping channels, was found dead on a local beach; a fatality resulting from a vessel strike. The findings from this study demonstrate that a substantial number of humpback whales frequent high-traffic areas near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, increasing the likelihood of injurious vessel interactions that can result in mortalities.

One of the last pristine marine soundscapes, the Arctic, is exposed to increasing anthropogenic activities due to climate-induced decrease in sea ice coverage. In this study, we combined movement and behavioral data from animal-borne tags in a controlled sound exposure study to describe the reactions of narwhals, Monodon monoceros, to airgun pulses and ship noise. Sixteen narwhals were live captured and instrumented with satellite tags and Acousonde acoustic-behavioral recorders, and 11 of them were exposed to airgun pulses and vessel sounds. The sound exposure levels (SELs) of pulses from a small airgun (3.4 L) used in 2017 and a larger one (17.0 L) used in 2018 were measured using drifting recorders. The experiment was divided into trials with airgun and ship-noise exposure, intertrials with only ship-noise, and pre- and postexposure periods. Both trials and intertrials lasted ∼4 h on average per individual. Depending on the location of the whales, the number of separate exposures ranged between one and eight trials or intertrials. Received pulse SELs dropped below 130 dB re 1 μPa2 s by 2.5 km for the small airgun and 4-9 km for the larger airgun, and background noise levels were reached at distances of ∼3 and 8-10.5 km, respectively, for the small and big airguns. Avoidance reactions of the whales could be detected at distances >5 km in 2017 and >11 km in 2018 when in line of sight of the seismic vessel. Meanwhile, a ∼30% increase in horizontal travel speed could be detected up to 2 h before the seismic vessel was in line of sight. Applying line of sight as the criterion for exposure thus excludes some potential pre-response effects, and our estimates of effects must therefore be considered conservative. The whales reacted by changing their swimming speed and direction at distances between 5 and 24 km depending on topographical surroundings where the exposure occurred. The propensity of the whales to move towards the shore increased with increasing exp

In 2024, the EU intends to include the global shipping industry in the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). Shipping companies will have to pay for the carbon emissions of ships over 5,000 GT on routes between EU and non-EU ports. This paper selects typical shipping companies in the world. Based on the principle of fairness, historical method, baseline method and mixed method are adopted to explore their carbon emission quota allocation. The ZSG-DEA efficiency model is used to evaluate the distribution results and verify the optimal efficiency. The research results show that the mixed method has a high efficiency of allocation. The method predicts that the carbon quota of typical shipping companies in the world will reach the Pareto optimal allocation in 2024 and Maersk has the highest carbon emission quota among the eight typical shipping companies, reaching 32,431,800 tons, followed by MSC and EMC, reaching 8,542,400 tons and 6,809,500 tons, respectively. Based on the results, we can obtain a reasonable allocation of carbon allowances in the EU carbon market according to the proportion of business of shipping companies involved in EU routes. The research is still applicable to the allocation of carbon emmissions in future years. Therefore, this paper provides suggestions for the orderly allocation of carbon quota and carbon trading in the global shipping market.