scholarly journals The “sound of silence” in Granada during the COVID-19 lockdown

Noise Mapping ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerónimo Vida Manzano ◽  
José Antonio Almagro Pastor ◽  
Rafael García Quesada ◽  
Francesco Aletta ◽  
Tin Oberman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Environmental Noise ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
Noise Sources ◽  
Comparison Results ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

Abstract Exceptional circumstances in the city of Granada due to the COVID-19 lockdown have provided the opportunity to characterise the impact of humans on its urban acoustic climate. Traditional environmental noise management and urban sound planning usually take into account noise sources in the city, such as industrial activities or road traffic noise, in model estimations, as well as in empirical research. But trying to isolate human impact by itself, human activity including social activity, walking, talking or just going around the city, has always been a difficult or even impossible task. The COVID-19 lockdown measures have provided the opportunity to study urban climate as never before, affected just by natural or animal noise sources. Previous soundscape research at some iconic sites in the city of Granada carried out in 2019 before the lockdown and a special measuring campaign carried out at the same locations during the lockdown in 2020 offered valuable information on sound levels and local characteristics in order to carry out this comparison. Results show a great change in environmental noise levels that is interesting not only because of its magnitude, but also for its implications, especially at those sites where social human activity was an identifying characteristic. Natural or animal sounds became surprisingly evident at some study sites, especially where road traffic noise dramatically decreased, leading to significantly lower background noise levels. Important spectral changes are observed before and during the lockdown, suggesting a shift from anthropic to animal sources in the acoustic environment.

scholarly journals Environmental noise, its types and effects on health

2021 ◽  
pp. 41-48
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Environmental Noise ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Railway Traffic ◽  
The Impact

Noise can be defined as an undesirable sound that pollutes the environment. If noise is continuous and exceeds certain levels, negative effects on health can be observed. In recent years, the impact of environmental noise (road traffic noise, railway traffic noise, air traffic noise and industrial noise) on human health has come under increasingly intense scrutiny. Noise can cause a number of negative effects on health that directly or indirectly affect humans. The occurrence of some certain and harmful health effects drives the onset of others and may contribute to the development of various diseases. Health is not only a state of physical well-being, but also mental well-being. Mental health primarily depends on the quality of life, which can be affected by various environmental factors, such as noise. An important aspect of fighting noise is the most effective protection of the population by avoiding sources of noise and reducing it. This can be achieved by introducing new technical solutions and new technologies, including devices that generate less noise. Another important measure is educating the society and influencing the change of individual and collective behavior, which may contribute to reducing the harmful factor, which is noise in human life, and minimize the resulting negative effects on health.

scholarly journals Road Noise Levels in Urban Environment Compared to Specification Limits. The Case of the City of Larissa, Greece

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanouil A. Papadimitriou ◽  
Grigorios P. Papageorgiou ◽  
Nikolaos Alamanis ◽  
Theodosia-Niki Diakosavva
Keyword(s):  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
Road Noise ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Limit Values ◽  
High Noise ◽  
Specification Limits ◽  
The City

Greece, as well as other developed countries, is facing the growing problem of road traffic noise. It stands for a severe problem in the urban areas of the country, including the city of Larissa. The root cause is the huge increase in traffic volume and the lack of adequate urban infrastructure planning. Estimation of the level of road traffic noise is usually conducted using acoustic meters. It is widely accepted that most of the cities’ population is exposed to high noise levels due to controversial traffic capacity. Moreover, high noise levels are strongly related to phycological and neurological diseases. Thus, it is of utmost importance, the road noise levels to be lower than dictated by relevant specification limits. To develop better noise-environment policies, relative research should focus on the measurement of in-situ noise levels, so as appropriate for each case corrective measures to be taken. The present paper examines the noise levels of a center road of the 5th Greek city, in terms of population, compared to worldwide adopted noise specification limits. The clear aim stands for finding the percentage of road noise that exceeds commonly accepted threshold values, namely limit values of European Union and World Health Organization. The results of this research strongly indicate that measured noise values override upper limit values in a certain extent.

scholarly journals The Influence of Pavement Degradation on Population Exposure to Road Traffic Noise

Coatings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabete Freitas ◽  
Lígia Silva ◽  
Cedric Vuye
Keyword(s):  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Environmental Noise ◽  
Population Exposure ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Road Noise ◽  
Pavement Maintenance ◽  
Road Pavement ◽  
Single Vehicle ◽  
The Impact

Road pavement develops distresses over time, which increase tyre/road noise. This work focuses on the impact of these distresses on environmental noise. To calculate the environmental noise, a method to transform Close ProXimity (CPX) measurement results into the required input for traffic noise models was defined and used. The tyre/road noise levels were determined by the CPX method for three types of pavement, with three types of distress, at three different speed levels. The study was carried out in the city center of Guimarães, a medium-sized Portuguese city. Using the NMPB model, 18 noise maps were produced for the passing of one single vehicle, taking into account two levels of distress (50% and 100%) for the pavement. The presence of distresses increased the noise, calculated at control points, by up to 7.1 dBA, and the percentage of the population exposed to levels over 45 dB was more than 11%. It was shown that pavement maintenance at early stages of distress development is, particularly for low-speed roads, very important to reduce environmental noise and population exposure. A comprehensive selection of the type of surface and speed control policies can mitigate the impact of a lack of maintenance.

scholarly journals Sleep Disturbance and Noise Annoyance and Environmental Noise Exposure in Residents of Two Major Slovakian Cities

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Argalasova ◽  
T. Kimakova ◽  
E. Panulinova ◽  
A. Filova ◽  
A. Pultznerova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sleep Disturbance ◽  
Noise Exposure ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Environmental Noise ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Annoyance ◽  
Exposure Category ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Lower Noise

Abstract The significant growth in traffic density in Slovakia, combined with the country’s economic change, has resulted in new environmental noise issues, particularly in road traffic noise. The objective of this study was to assess and evaluate the impact of environmental noise on the psychosocial well-being of young healthy individuals in the two main Slovak cities of Bratislava and Kosice. To assess noise annoyance, interference with activities, and sleep disturbance, the ICBEN (The International Commission on the Biological Effects of Noise) anonymous validated “Noise annoyance questionnaire” was applied; noise levels were objectified by direct measurements using a sound level analyzer with a frequency analysis module. Young individuals between the ages of 20 and 30 were interviewed in Bratislava (533 respondents, 155 males) and Kosice (355 respondents, 111 males). The majority of the respondents in both cities were exposed to medium levels of road traffic noise LAeq ≥ 60 dB. In Bratislava, 27.82 % of respondents resided in the higher noise exposure category LAeq ≥ 70 dB, while in Kosice, 39.9 % resided in the lower noise exposure category LAeq < 50 dB. Road traffic noise annoys respondents in the higher noise exposure category in Bratislava 63.51 %, and even in the lower noise exposure category in Kosice, it interferes with reading and mental work, sleep and falling asleep 46.51 %. The study has identified traffic noise as an environmental issue in large cities, emphasizing the need for vulnerable individuals to be protected, particularly at night.

scholarly journals The Impact of Thin Asphalt Layers as a Road Traffic Noise Intervention in an Urban Environment

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 12561
Author(s):  
Ablenya Grangeiro de Barros ◽  
Jarl K. Kampen ◽  
Cedric Vuye
Keyword(s):  
Noise Exposure ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Low Noise ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Comfort Level ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Acoustic Measurements ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
The Impact

Low-noise thin asphalt layers (TALs) are a feasible solution to mitigate road traffic noise in urban environments. Nevertheless, the impacts of this type of noise intervention are reported mostly regarding noise levels, while non-acoustic aspects influencing the population perception are still little-known. This study investigates the implementation of TALs in two streets of Antwerp, Belgium. The effectiveness of the intervention was measured via noise modelling and acoustic measurements of road traffic noise. A reduction of 2.8 dB in noise exposure was observed in Lden and Lnight, while SPB measurements showed decreases up to 5.2 dB on the roadside. The subjective impacts of the TALs were evaluated via self-administered surveys and compared to results from control streets. The annoyance indicators were positively impacted by the TALs implementation, resulting in annoyance levels similar or lower than in the control streets. The TALs did not impact the reported physical complaints, sleep quality, and comfort level to perform activities.

scholarly journals Road Traffic Noise on the Santa Marta City Tourist Route

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (16) ◽  
pp. 7196
Author(s):  
Dámaris A. Jiménez-Uribe ◽  
Darwin Daniels ◽  
Zoë L. Fleming ◽  
Andrés M. Vélez-Pereira
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Flow ◽  
Noise Level ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Environmental Noise ◽  
Time Of Day ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Sampling Point ◽  
Heavy Vehicles ◽  
Noise Levels

The objective of this study was to determine the influence of vehicular traffic on the environmental noise levels of the Santa Marta City tourist route on the Colombian coast. An analysis of vehicle types and frequencies at various times of the day over nearly a year helped to track the main sources of environmental noise pollution. Five sampling points were selected, which were distributed over 12 km, with three classified as peripheral urban and two as suburban. The average traffic flow was 966 vehicles/h and was mainly composed of automobiles, with higher values in the peripheral urban area. The noise level was 103.3 dBA, with background and peak levels of 87.2 and 107.3 dBA, respectively. The noise level was higher during the day; however, there were no differences between weekdays and weekends. The results from the analysis of variance showed that the number of vehicles and the noise levels varied greatly according to the time of day and sampling point location. The peak and mean noise levels were correlated with the number of automobiles, buses and heavy vehicles. The mean noise levels were similar at all sample points despite the traffic flow varying, and the background noise was only correlated for automobiles (which varied much more than the heavy vehicles between day and night).

Audio recording analysis in an urban park of the city of Milan (Italy)

2021 ◽  
Vol 263 (3) ◽  
pp. 3247-3258
Author(s):  
Roberto Benocci ◽  
Alessandro Bisceglie ◽  
Fabio Angelini ◽  
Giovanni Zambon ◽  
Giovanni Brambilla ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Road Traffic ◽  
Anthropogenic Activities ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Urban Park ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Sources ◽  
Acoustic Environment ◽  
Recording Analysis ◽  
Audio Data ◽  
The City

A noise monitoring campaign has been performed in an urban park of Milan (Italy) called Parco Nord. The area of study is a large peri-urban park in the northern part of the city, characterized by wooded land rich in biodiversity and exposed to different sources and degrees of anthropogenic disturbances, such as road traffic noise and artificial light. The acoustic environment is rather complex due to the contemporary presence of different noise sources, leading to the difficult task of discriminating them in audio data. Due to these multifactorial characteristics, we evaluated different eco-acoustic indices in the attempt to derive a methodology to evaluate the potential of sound ecology indicators to discriminate the different types of sounds present in medium-large urban parks. Time series of about two-week recordings have been transformed into eco-acoustics indices and statistically analysed. The results show a redistribution of recordings into each cluster associated with different sound components and different period of the day. This allowed the identification of different degree of biophonic and/or anthropogenic activities throughout the day.

scholarly journals The Public Health Impact of Road-Traffic Noise in a Highly-Populated City, Republic of Korea: Annoyance and Sleep Disturbance

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 2947 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taeho Park ◽  
Minho Kim ◽  
Chaemi Jang ◽  
Taeryang Choung ◽  
Kyung-A Sim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Sleep Disturbance ◽  
Internal Combustion Engines ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Republic Of Korea ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
High Level ◽  
The City

Sustainable transportation is an essential part of a sustainable city; however, modern transportation systems with internal-combustion engines emits unacceptably high level of air-pollutants and noise. It is recognized widely that road-traffic noise has negative health impacts (such as annoyance and sleep disturbance) on exposed population in highly-populated cities. These harmful effects should be removed or at least reduced to guarantee the sustainability of modern cities. The estimation of pollutant levels at a specific location and the extent of the damage is therefore important for policy makers. This study presents a procedure to determine the levels of road-traffic noise at both day and night, and an assessment of the adverse health effects across Gwangju Metropolitan City (GMC), Republic of Korea (ROK). Road-traffic noise maps in 2-D and 3-D were generated, in order to find spatial distribution of noise levels across the city and noise level at the façade of a building-floor, respectively. The adoption of existing assessment models for the highly-annoyed (%HA) and highly-sleep-disturbed (%HSD) leads to building-based estimation of the affected population and spatial distribution of the road networks of the city. Very high noise levels were found to exist along major roads in the day and at night, with little difference between them. As a result, approximately 10% and 5% of the total population (n = 1,471,944) were estimated to experience high-level annoyance and sleep disturbance, respectively.

scholarly journals MODELLING URBAN NOISE IN CITYGML ADE: CASE OF THE NETHERLANDS

2017 ◽  
Vol IV-4/W5 ◽  
pp. 73-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Kumar ◽  
H. Ledoux ◽  
T. J. F. Commandeur ◽  
J. E. Stoter
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Input Data ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Environmental Noise ◽  
Motor Vehicles ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
Noise Mapping ◽  
Urban Noise

Road traffic and industrial noise has become a major source of discomfort and annoyance among the residents in urban areas. More than 44&amp;thinsp;% of the EU population is regularly exposed to road traffic noise levels over 55 dB, which is currently the maximum accepted value prescribed by the Environmental Noise Directive for road traffic noise. With continuously increasing population and number of motor vehicles and industries, it is very unlikely to hope for noise levels to diminish in the near future. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor urban noise, so as to make mitigation plans and to deal with its adverse effects. The 2002/49/EC Environmental Noise Directive aims to determine the exposure of an individual to environmental noise through noise mapping. One of the most important steps in noise mapping is the creation of input data for simulation. At present, it is done semi-automatically (and sometimes even manually) by different companies in different ways and is very time consuming and can lead to errors in the data. In this paper, we present our approach for automatically creating input data for noise simulations. Secondly, we focus on using 3D city models for presenting the results of simulation for the noise arising from road traffic and industrial activities in urban areas. We implemented a few noise modelling standards for industrial and road traffic noise in CityGML by extending the existing Noise ADE with new objects and attributes. This research is a steping stone in the direction of standardising the input and output data for noise studies and for reconstructing the 3D data accordingly.

scholarly journals LONG-TERM NOISE MEASUREMENTS AND HARMONICA INDEX AS A WAY OF RAISING PUBLIC AWARENESS ABOUT TRAFFIC NOISE IN THE CITY OF NIŠ

2017 ◽  
pp. 041 ◽  
Author(s):  
Momir Praščević ◽  
Darko Mihajlov ◽  
Dragan Cvetkovic ◽  
Aleksandar Gajicki
Keyword(s):  
Noise Level ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Environmental Noise ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Noise Measurements ◽  
The City ◽  
Level Monitoring

Environmental noise level monitoring in Serbia is performed in several cities and it is pursuant to the Law on Environmental Noise Protection and the accompanying regulations. Although these regulations are in accordance with the national standards, the methodology of noise monitoring varies in different cities. The issues which differ include the following: the number of measurement spots, the number of daily, weekly, and monthly measurement intervals, the duration of measurement intervals, measurement parameters and noise indicators used for noise evaluation. Different measurement procedures are the consequence of diverse city configurations, traffic structure, traffic flow, locations of noise-sensitive objects, as well as diverse contribution of noise sources. The road traffic noise level monitoring in the City of Nis has been organized from 1995 until today based on short-term measurements. The values of noise indicators are calculated based on these short-term measurements. The two newly purchased noise monitoring terminals by the Noise and Vibration Laboratory of the Faculty of Occupational Safety in Nis, enabled the long-term noise measurements. The procedure of permanent and semi-permanent road traffic noise measurements at eight locations in the City of Nis has been carried out since January 1, 2014. The results of long-term road traffic noise measurements at the main streets of Niš city are presented in this paper as well as the possibility of their presentation in the sense of the Harmonica index.

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