Several studies have proven that soundscape in blue space is conducive to human health and well-being, but few studies have explored which blue space characteristics would contribute to a better soundscape and visiting experience. Therefore, an on-site questionnaire investigation was conducted at two artificial lakes in Xi’an, China. The eight Perceived Sensory Dimensions (PSDs) as a landscape assessment tool were applied to identify the characteristics of artificial lake space in urban parks. The results showed that (1) In artificial lake space, overall environment and soundscape reached a very satisfactory level in general, while the respondents’ perceived level of overall restorativeness and soundscape restorativeness as just medium, which indicated that the quality of artificial lake space needs to be improved. (2) According to people’s perceptions, artificial lake spaces had the most obvious characteristics of prospect, social and space; serene and nature were medium; refuge, rich in species, and culture were the least. (3) The eight PSDs of artificial lake space, except for social, were positively correlated with soundscape satisfaction, overall satisfaction, soundscape restorativeness, and overall restorativeness. Moreover, among them, serene was the most significant characteristic in artificial lake space. These findings could be instructive to the design of urban parks with artificial lakes for improving users’ visiting satisfaction and restorativeness.
People could have a relatively great visiting experience in blue space no matter from visual or audio perspectives. However, blue space gained less attention in previous soundscape researches. More and more studies have proved the effect of visual and audio experience on visiting satisfaction
or even the restorative potential of the soundscape. This study conducted an on-site survey in different blue spaces in Xi'an, China to explore how the visual, audio, and overall visiting satisfaction and the restorative potential of soundscape interacted in blue space. Furthermore, the relationships
among them were also explored in different visiting duration. The results suggested that (1) Visual satisfaction didn't change over time while the soundscape satisfaction, overall satisfaction, and soundscape restoration peaked when people had stayed for 1 to 3 hours. (2) For four dimensions
of soundscape restoration, Fascination peaked in 30 minutes to 1 hour, and Capability peaked in 30min-3h while Being-away and Extent remained constant. (3) As for overall satisfaction and soundscape restoration, the vision mainly contributed to them in the first 1 hour, while the hearing mainly
contributed during 1 to 3 hours of experience. (4) As for POS (perceived occurrences) of sound sources, people could hear more natural sounds and human sounds in 30min-3h than in the first 30min. This study emphasized the importance of soundscape function in the planning and designing of urban
blue space.
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