UK Marine Noise Registry: Underwater Acoustic Events in Pulse Block Days, January 2021

The UK Marine Noise Registry raw data publication from January 2021 contains all non-personal data from the MNR database. It describes underwater noise events in pulse block days (PBD) within the UK oil and gas licensing grid, where a PBD indicates at least one noise event between 10 Hz and 10 kHz (or 12 kHz for multibeam echosounders) occurred in a block on a given day. The data is provided by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and was last updated on the platform in April 2026.

Use Cases

• Mapping spatial and temporal patterns of human-made underwater noise based on the pulse block day metric.
• Assessing cumulative noise exposure for marine life based on frequency ranges (10 Hz to 10 kHz) and event aggregation.
• Correlating industrial activity (e.g., oil and gas) with acoustic events using the defined UK licensing grid.
• Supporting environmental impact assessments for marine planning and regulatory compliance.

Strengths

• Data is explicitly provided with permission for re-use, facilitating open analysis.
• Noise events are defined with specific technical parameters (frequency range, grid block, daily aggregation).
• Includes caveat documents and a data dictionary for informed interpretation.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and file formats are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the UK oil and gas licensing grid.

Provenance

Source

Joint Nature Conservation Committee

Collection Method

Registry data collection from the Marine Noise Registry (MNR) database.

Time Range

Snapshot as of January 2021.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-14 09:48:16.955280; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United Kingdom marine areas, using the UK oil and gas licensing grid.