Wide-area assessment of topographical and meteorological effects on sound propagation by time-domain modeling

Noise mapping with a three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) model over larger areas suffers from its high computational demand. This study shows that an FDTD model in combination with a meteorological model can be used for at least qualitative assessments of topographical and meteorological effects on sound propagation in domains of even some kilometers extension. This is achieved by restricting the acoustical simulations to low frequencies which allow the use of a rather large numerical grid spacing.