Listening to the Mangroves

(3 Credits)

What does the environment say through sound? Are we equipped to listen? This course acoustically investigates the health of one of the most valuable and threatened coastal ecosystems on Earth, Abu Dhabi’s mangroves. Hearing is immersive, three-dimensional, and continuous, and this makes listening a powerful tool to understand environments, relationships, places, and histories that vision alone cannot provide. Through fieldwork consisting of recording sessions in the mangroves of Abu Dhabi, complemented by a hands-on lab with the Sounding the Mangroves project research team, students will build a comprehensive sound map of the mangroves’ health. As part of this work, students will get a primer on the fundamental concepts of acoustic ecology, soundscape analysis, and ecoacoustics; learn to operate professional sound equipment; and interview research teams from Environment Agency Abu Dhabi (EAD) in the areas of Jubail and Al Mirfa. Becoming acoustemologists, or scholars of sound, students will gain a greater understanding of sound as a fundamental component of human and natural wellbeing, and of listening as a mode of ecological knowledge.