ASA/ANSI S3/SC1.7-2026

Standard for Acoustic Metadata for Passive Acoustic Monitoring

Sound plays a vital role in the natural world and is often used to study species and ecosystems in both marine and terrestrial environments. This standard defines a unified framework for documenting metadata associated with passive acoustic recordings and associated analysis outputs, promoting consistency and precision. It encompasses key aspects of acoustic data collection, such as instrument deployments, deployment locations, configurations, and calibration details, supporting both stationary and mobile platforms with single or multiple sensors. Additionally, the standard provides mechanisms for detailed documentation of detected sounds, offering structured representations of taxa and flexible annotation levels—from simple presence over specified time intervals to precise timing of individual calls. Spatial data, including sound source location and direction, is also supported, with provisions for multiple coordinate reference systems. By standardizing the capture and preservation of information related to data collection, analysis, and quality control, this framework enhances reproducibility and facilitates data integration across studies. It enables researchers to combine results from diverse analyses, improving the interoperability, utility, and long-term value of acoustic data for ecological research and conservation efforts.

This standard for information derived from passive acoustic monitoring data grew out of the Tethys project and was developed into a standard by an Acoustical Society of America working group:

  • Simone Baumann-Pickering – Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Univ. California, San Diego, CA, USA
  • Danielle Cholewiak, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Northeast Fisheries Science Center
  • Douglas Gillespie, St. Andrews University, St. Andrews, Scotland
  • Shane Guan, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Sterling, VA, USA
  • Jasper Kanes, Ocean Networks Canada, Victoria, BC, Canada
  • Katherine H. Kim, Greenridge Sciences, Inc, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
  • Holger Klinck, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
  • Xavier Mouy, JASCO Applied Sciences, Victoria, BC, Canada
  • Marie A. Roch (chair) – San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA
  • Ana Širović – Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
  • Carrie Wall – NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Boulder, CO, USA

The standard has been used by numerous groups such as the Marine Biacoustics Research Collaborative, the Tethys project, The National Centers for Environmental Information's acoustic archive, and The Northeast Fisheries Science Center's Passive Acoustics Cetacean Map.

 

  • Standard ASA/ANSI S3/SC1.7-2026 is availble for purchase from the American National Standards Institute.  We provide a freely available auxilary “how-to” document below that helps people understand how the standard is used and whether or not they might want to purchase it.

  • Usage scenarios – Standards can be difficult to interpet without context unless you already know the subject matter very well. This appendix provides examples of how sample bioacoustic applications might use the standards.

  • The standard describes the types of data and their standard names. It is not a wire protocol designed to promote standardized binary compatible transfer of databases. Tethys 3.1 implements most of the proposed standard and uses XML documents conforming to the schemata as a wire protocol (it can also serve data in Javascript object notation – JSON).  The most recent schemata can be accessed via the git repository. Using an XML editor such as Oxygen XML enables interactive graphical representation of the schemata. Click here for a non-interactive graphical representation of the schemata.