DOI: 10.5176/2425-0112_UPPD18.146
Authors: Rachel Dyer and Mark Dyer
Abstract: The World Health Organization (WHO) cites noise pollution as the second most hazardous environmental type of pollution and with more than half of the world’s population now living in urban areas consideration must be given to how we manage the acoustic environment in cities. This study uses soundwalks to explore how soundscapes are perceived and experienced in high density urban areas, why certain components of a soundscape are preferred and how these preferences can be adopted into planning practice to enable planners to effectively manage, design and plan the quality of city soundscapes. The study examines the relationship between sound-pressure levels and psychoacoustic parameters with a view to examining methods to measure soundscape quality. The research shows that participants perceived quality soundscapes as serving multiple emotional dimensions, with a preference towards soundscapes dominated by human sound sources. Conventional acoustic parameters used to measure sound were found to be insufficient as a tool to effectively measure soundscapes. Sound source is identified as a key factor that influences a person’s tolerance to sound-pressure levels. On this basis, an indicative weighting scale is proposed that takes account of how individuals perceive sound pressure levels in relation to different sound source categories based on perceptual indicators.
Keywords: component; sound walks, acoustic parameters, pleasantness weighting, urban design, city soundscapes
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