Underwater Hearing and Noise Exposure Concerns in Humans

Human divers can be exposed to high-energy underwater noise sources as part of their jobs. Establishing safety guidance for noise exposure is critical to protect divers from injury. However, in-air guidance cannot be used because humans detect sound underwater using a different pathway (bone conduction) than the traditional air-conducted pathway. To date, the body of literature on what humans can hear and how we respond to noise exposure underwater is limited, although interest in the topic is growing. This chapter will provide a thorough review of the existing underwater hearing experiments and evaluate which studies have collected quality hearing threshold data that can be used to establish what humans are capable of hearing when submerged. This chapter will also review the studies that have worked to establish auditory injury thresholds by exposing humans to underwater sound.