Early identification of urban locations towards soundscape analysis

Soundscape management in a city implies mitigating harmful sounds and promoting useful ones, according to their environmental, social or cultural significance and considering a more human centered paradigm. The Soundscape approach does not consider sound as a waste but a resource and its application may reach more benefits than solely noise control actions. This conception conveys an emerging paradigm, which requires novel and cross-disciplinary methodologies for its application. In this direction, every location in a city has its own dynamics and this should be weighed. Thus, preliminary area exploration represents a strategic action allowing one to identify key soundscape spots, optimize the data acquisition, and adjustment of methodologies. This work presents the conceptual foundations, empirical methods and some preliminary results for the early identification of urban study sites.