Abstract
The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) is Australia’s offshore energy regulator and has a unique perspective on the benefits of adaptive management for addressing underwater noise impacts. This is due to the dual role in assessing the adequacy of proposed management programs for underwater noise-generating activities as well as undertaking compliance inspections to ensure management programs are effectively implemented as intended.
Environmental impact assessment is not a perfect discipline. It relies on a series of systematic impact predictions based on comprehensive considerations of interactions between a proposed activity and the environmental values and application of relevant scientific studies. The predictions of impact then inform the selection of mitigation measures needed to reduce potential impacts to acceptable levels. The effectiveness of mitigation measures and how they will function and perform within the range of variables presented by a real-world setting is uncertain in many cases. For underwater noise-generating activities, uncertainty in the effectiveness of mitigation measures can be addressed through the application of adaptive management.
NOPSEMA’s regular compliance monitoring of noise-generating activities has revealed the importance of adaptive management for responding to unforeseen circumstances and environmental data during the implementation of activities to address key areas of scientific uncertainty.
This chapter highlights the post approval requirements to implement adaptive management programs to address new information, and scientific uncertainties that remain following project approval. Monitoring and adaptive management are critical for ensuring underwater noise impacts can continue to be managed to acceptable levels throughout the full duration of an activity.
Two case studies are explored in the chapter to highlight how changes in the knowledge base that informed impact predictions and changes in the environmental setting should be evaluated to determine the need for adaptive management.