Soundscape Identification in Noise Annoyance Evaluation

Living in modern cities is being interfered by ambitious noise more and more seriously. Present controlling approach is to monitor sound pressure level, which only describes one characteristic of a sound environment and ignores its influence on people too. Many studies proved that noise annoyance is not only determined by sound pressure level but also by soundscape that a person identifies. Since a bird singing or water babbling is perceived quieter than a traffic roaring even both having the same sound pressure level, it is considered that soundscape identification plays an important role in subjective evaluation of noise annoyance. Therefore, this study is going to explore how soundscape identification in determining noise annoyance evaluation within a city context. The study investigates four places in an ecological residential area that contains completely nature, nature mixed with man-made, and complete man-made soundscapes. Using recordings of the four study-sites, physical characteristics of a diversity soundscape have been analyzed and relationships of a soundscape’s physical characteristics with noise annoyance evaluation have been studied.