During a survey related to acoustic and visual perception of users of urban areas, 614 people have been interviewed in Pisa (Italy). The work aims to identify and quantify the effects of parameters influencing the perception of tranquillity in order to understand the soundscape and to propose a method based on the perception of tranquillity for the detection of quiet areas within urban ones. A linear model that predicts the tranquillity perceived in different environments, based on their visual and acoustic characteristics, is proposed. Users were interviewed by operators inside the areas, using a direct approach of standardized questionnaires and oral questions. Simultaneous noise measurements and soundwalks have been performed, together with visual registrations. The linear model obtained predicts the perceived tranquillity based on the statistical level L A10 (A-weighted noise level exceeded for 10% of the measurement time) the sound sources and visual elements. The perceived tranquillity results negatively correlated to L A10 and to the presence of sound sources or negative visual elements. The presence of beneficial sound sources is positively correlated to the perceived tranquillity. However, the effect of the noise level is regulated by environmental characteristics. Perceived tranquillity is proposed as an indicator to identify quiet areas in the urban environment, according to European Directive 49/2002/EC. The obtained model identifies the areas that would get a higher tranquillity value than a fixed threshold value and therefore would be perceived as quiet. The model can be used as a cost-benefit analysis support tool to identify the best solution between the reduction of noise levels and the regeneration of urban areas, referring to the tranquillity perceived by the users.

Summary1. Urbanization is a landscape process affecting biodiversity world-wide. Despite many urbanrural studies of bird assemblages, it is still unclear whether more species-rich communities have more individuals, regardless of the level of urbanization. The more-individuals hypothesis assumes that species-rich communities have larger populations, thus reducing the chance of local extinctions. 2. Using newly collated avian distribution data for 1 km 2 grid cells across Florence, Italy, we show a significantly positive relationship between species richness and assemblage abundance for the whole urban area. This richness-abundance relationship persists for the 1 km 2 grid cells with less than 50% of urbanized territory, as well as for the remaining grid cells, with no significant difference in the slope of the relationship. These results support the more-individuals hypothesis as an explanation of patternsinspeciesrichness,alsoinhumanmodifiedandfragmentedhabitats. 3. However, the intercept of the species richness-abundance relationship is significantly lower for highly urbanized grid cells. Our study confirms that urban communities have lower species richness but counters the common notion that assemblages in densely urbanized ecosystems have more individuals. In Florence, highly inhabited areas show fewer species and lower assemblage abundance. 4. Urbanized ecosystems are an ongoing large-scale natural experiment which can be used to test ecological theories empirically.

Environmental noise prevention starts from strategic noise maps of main transport infrastructures and agglomerations. Graduated colors are representative of the average noise levels produced in space by each individual source, or the by the overall sum. Among their purposes, communication of results to population has been the most neglected. The present paper proposes predominance maps for the first time in environmental acoustic (NSP). NSP are visualization tool showing the predominant source in each point by means of polygons and colors. Also Intensity Noise Source Predominance maps (I-NSP) are proposed, which add visualizations of noise exposure levels to NSP by coloring the polygons according to a color-scale. Both NSP and I-NSP are new visualization that would help understanding and assigning responsibilities for exceeding limits, but they also represent a valid support for locating the acoustic monitoring stations when required. As case studies, the maps are calculated in port areas, as they are large areas with a great variability of different types of noise sources and represent a smaller case than agglomeration, but with higher complexity.