Application of land-use regression models to estimate sound pressure levels and frequency components of road traffic noise in Taichung, Taiwan

Excessive road traffic noise exposure in (sub)urban parks hinders its restorative function and will negatively impact the number of visitors. Especially in such green environments, noise abatements by natural means, well integrated in the landscape, are the most desired solutions. Although dense vegetation bordering the park or raised berms could come first in mind, local landscape depressions are typically underused. In this work, a case-study of a small suburban park, squeezed in between two major arterial roads, is analyzed. The spatially dependent road traffic noise exposure in the park is assessed in detail by mobile sound pressure level measurements. Local reductions of up to 6-7 dBA are found at landscape depressions of only a few meters deep. It can therefore be concluded that this is an efficient measure and should be added to the environmental noise control toolbox for noise polluted parks.

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Association Between Road Traffic Noise and Incidence of Diabetes Mellitus and Hypertension in Toronto, Canada: A Population‐Based Cohort Study

Journal of the American Heart Association ◽

10.1161/jaha.119.013021 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (6) ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Saeha Shin ◽

Li Bai ◽

Tor H. Oiamo ◽

Richard T. Burnett ◽

Scott Weichenthal ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Diabetes Mellitus ◽

Cohort Study ◽

Sound Pressure Level ◽

Sound Pressure ◽

Road Traffic ◽

Traffic Noise ◽

Population Based ◽

Pressure Level ◽

Road Traffic Noise

Background Exposure to road traffic noise has been linked to cardiometabolic complications, such as elevated blood pressure and glucose dysregulation. However, epidemiologic evidence linking road traffic noise to diabetes mellitus and hypertension remains scarce. We examined associations between road traffic noise and the incidence of diabetes mellitus and hypertension in Toronto, Canada. Methods and Results Using the Ontario Population Health and Environment Cohort, we conducted a retrospective, population‐based cohort study of long‐term residents of Toronto, aged 35 to 100 years, who were registered for provincial publicly funded health insurance, and were without a history of hypertension (n=701 174) or diabetes mellitus (n=914 607). Road traffic noise exposure levels were assessed by the equivalent continuous A‐weighted sound pressure level (dBA) for the 24‐hour day and the equivalent continuous A‐weighted sound pressure level for the night (11 pm –7 am) . Noise exposures were assigned to subjects according to their annual residential postal codes during the 15‐year follow‐up. We used random‐effect Cox proportional hazards models adjusting for personal and area‐level characteristics. From 2001 to 2015, each interquartile range increase in the equivalent continuous A‐weighted sound pressure level (dBA) for the 24‐hour day (10.0 dBA) was associated with an 8% increase in incident diabetes mellitus (95% CI, 1.07–1.09) and a 2% increase in hypertension (95% CI, 1.01–1.03). We obtained similar estimates with the equivalent continuous A‐weighted sound pressure level for the night (11 pm –7 am) . These results were robust to all sensitivity analyses conducted, including further adjusting for traffic‐related air pollutants (ultrafine particles and nitrogen dioxide). For both hypertension and diabetes mellitus, we observed stronger associations with the equivalent continuous A‐weighted sound pressure level (dBA) for the 24‐hour day among women and younger adults (aged <60 years). Conclusions Long‐term exposure to road traffic noise was associated with an increased incidence of diabetes mellitus and hypertension in Toronto.

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Statistical Study of the Instantaneous Values of Traffic Noise Sound Pressure Level

Noise & Vibration Worldwide ◽

10.1260/095745602760590203 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 33 (8) ◽

pp. 16-24

Author(s):

Jesús Alba Fernández ◽

Marcelino Ferri García ◽

Jaime Ramis Soriano ◽

Juan Antonio Martínez Mora

Keyword(s):

Sound Pressure Level ◽

Sound Pressure ◽

Road Traffic ◽

Traffic Noise ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Sound Level ◽

Pressure Level ◽

Road Traffic Noise ◽

Statistical Parameters ◽

Sound Event

In environmental acoustics the knowledge of the time dependency of the sound level provides relevant information about a sound event. In this sense, it may be said that conventional sound level metres have frequently implemented programs to calculate the fractiles (percentiles) of the distribution of instantaneous sound levels; and there are several indexes to evaluate the noise pollution, based on different statistical parameters. For further analysis of sound, and to obtain the commented indexes, it is accepted that this distribution is normal or gaussian. The questions we've tried to solve in this work are the following: First of all, whether the time dependent distribution of the variable sound pressure level should be considered as Gaussian in general cases or only in some particular ones. On the other hand, we have studied how the frequency of the sampling affects the resulting distribution of a given a sound event. To these ends, a set of road traffic noise events has been evaluated. Furthermore, even in gaussian distributions of sound pressure levels, the average of the distribution will not be coincident with the equivalent sound pressure level; that is the level of the average quadratic pressure. The difference between this parameter, and its dependence on the standard deviation, is studied.

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Minimum measurement time interval to estimate a reliable sound pressure level of road traffic noise using two types of dynamic statistics

Applied Acoustics ◽

10.1016/j.apacoust.2014.03.007 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 83 ◽

pp. 150-155 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Mitsunobu Maruyama ◽

Kazuhiro Kuno ◽

Toshio Sone

Keyword(s):

Sound Pressure Level ◽

Sound Pressure ◽

Road Traffic ◽

Traffic Noise ◽

Pressure Level ◽

Measurement Time ◽

Time Interval ◽

Road Traffic Noise

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Improving the noise reduction by green roofs due to solar panels and substrate shaping

Building Acoustics ◽

10.1177/1351010x18776804 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 25 (3) ◽

pp. 219-232 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Timothy Van Renterghem

Keyword(s):

Noise Reduction ◽

Insertion Loss ◽

Sound Pressure ◽

Road Traffic ◽

Green Roof ◽

Green Roofs ◽

Road Traffic Noise ◽

Back Side ◽

Solar Panels ◽

Sound Pressure Levels

The urban fabric largely consists of acoustically rigid materials. This not only affects sound pressure levels in streets, but also how sound propagates towards the back side of a building or to connected urban canyons. A green roof is a practical solution to have roof absorption, mitigating diffracting sound waves. Flat green roofs were shown to provide roughly 3 dBA urban road traffic noise reduction relative to a common flat rigid roof. Although already relevant, it has been numerically studied in this work how the green roof insertion loss of flat roofs can be further increased. Solar panels on green roofs were found to significantly decrease sound pressure levels at the shielded building facade, up to 5 dBA on top of the insertion loss of granular substrates. Polyurethane foam slabs as green roof substrates provide relevant shielding when placed on a series of hollow trapezium-like cores of sufficient height.

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