Lot of people are oftenly using Google Maps, Street View feature to see the things at different locations. Thanks to Australian Scientists for developing a sort of audio equivalent which will allow users to hear various eco-regions throughout the country.
The system is being developed via collaborative efforts between the Queensland University of Technology, James Cook University, the University of Queensland, the University of New England and Charles Sturt University. Named as the Australian Acoustic Observatory, the system is based around 400 solar-powered audio sensors that will be placed at 100 sites in 7 distinct ecological regions in Australia. The regions include desert, grasslands, shrublands, temperate, subtropical and tropical forests.
These audio sensors will proceed to capture nature sounds 24/7 for five years. The recorded audio will be uploaded to a cloud-based server, from which the citizen, scientists, artists, researchers and general public can freely access the recordings.
To listen the recorded nature sounds, users will be allowed to select time and date of specific locations using visualized soundscape displays on observatory’s website. System will also recognize animals call and will let know the users which animals call is this and user will also provide suggestions for more mysterious calls.
Thanks to the custom software enabling to analyze the unique combination of sounds of one area to assign it a one-of-a kind “acoustic DNA.”
“The sensors will capture every frog croak, bird call, animal noise, and weather event to create a soundscape for each eco-region,” says the Queensland University of Technology’s Prof. Paul Roe. “This will allow us to hear what is happening in remote areas when, for example, rain makes the area inaccessible but interesting ecological events such as desert frogs emerging from the ground are occurring. The Acoustic Observatory will reveal these events and show us what is happening to the environment.”