A widened array of metrics (WAM) approach to characterize the urban acoustic environment; a case comparison of urban mixed-use and forest

Lawrence, Bryce; Hornberg, Jonas; Haselhoff, Timo; Sutcliffe, Robynne; Ahmed, Salman; Moebus, Susanne; Gruehn, Dietwald

doi:10.1016/j.apacoust.2021.108387

Cited by 16 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…It must be noted, though, that even after the closure the ambient noise was slightly higher at the airport site than the control forest. However, the average ambient noise level at the airport locations was 46 dB(A) SPL, which is within the range of natural noise levels in a temperate forest [ 30 , 67 ]. Moreover, the mean difference in noise levels between the airport and the control site was lower than 4 dB, which is unlikely to affect the song timing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Long-term effects of noise pollution on the avian dawn chorus: a natural experiment facilitated by the closure of an international airport

Framond

Brumm

2022

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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The impacts of noise pollution on birdsong have been extensively investigated but potential long-term effects are neglected. Near airports, where noise levels are particularly high, birds start singing earlier in the morning, probably to gain more time of uninterrupted singing before air traffic sets in. In a previous study, we documented this phenomenon in the vicinity of Berlin Tegel airport. In 2020, Tegel airport closed down, giving us the opportunity to investigate potential long-term effects after noise removal and to gain insight into the mechanisms underlying the advancement of dawn singing. We found that several species at the airport shifted their song onset back after the closure and now had similar schedules to their conspecifics at a control site. Some species, however, still sang earlier near the closed airport. While the first suggests plastic adaptation, the latter suggests selection for early singing males in areas with long-lasting noise pollution. Our findings indicate that a uniform behavioural response to anthropogenic change in a community can be based on diverging evolutionary mechanisms. Overall, we show that noise pollution can have long-lasting effects on animal behaviour and noise removal may not lead to immediate recovery in some species.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Long-term effects of noise pollution on the avian dawn chorus: a natural experiment facilitated by the closure of an international airport

Framond

Brumm

2022

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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“…To bring the work of Lippold and Lawrence [39] into context, Lawrence et al [62] present a detailed case comparison between urban forests and urban mixed use using ecoacoustic indices [11] and an SPL measure to compare these two dichotomous areas in the urban acoustic environment. This study found average SPL reductions of 20 dB in forests as compared to mixed use, a pronounced morning and dusk avifauna chorus in forests that are either masked by traffic noise or simply not present in urban mixed use, greater overall amplitude during daytimes in urban mixed use than forests, and a visible reduction in amplitude in the sub-2 kHz range in forests.…”

Section: Selection Of Composite Ecoacoustic Indicators For Biophony A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Acoustic Characterization of Potential Quiet Areas in Dortmund, Germany

Lawrence,

Frücht,

Heying

et al. 2024

Environments

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German noise action plans aim to reduce negative health outcomes from noise exposure and identify quiet areas free of noise pollution. Quiet area identification in German noise action plans is based primarily on noise mapping and spatial analysis and not empirical or qualitative data about acoustic environments, thus leaving a gap in the understanding of the quality of formally recognized quiet areas in noise action plans. This work presents a comparative empirical case study in Dortmund, Germany, with the aim to describe the diurnal dB(A) and biophonic properties of quiet areas versus noise ‘hot spots’. Sound observations (n = 282,764) were collected in five different natural or recreational land use patch types larger than four acres within 33 proposed quiet areas in Dortmund (n = 70) and 23 noise hot spots between 27 April 2022 and 2 March 2023. We found that quiet areas are on average more than 20 dB(A) quieter than noise hot spots almost every hour of the day. Forests, managed tree stands, cemeteries, and agriculture diel patterns are dominated by dawn dusk chorus in spring and summer, whereas sports and recreation as well as noise hot spots are dominated by traffic and human noise. A novel composite biophony mapping procedure is presented that finds distinct temporal distribution of biophony in forested and agriculture peri-urban locations positively associated with patch size, distance away from LDEN > 55, proximity to water, and the number of vegetation layers in the plant community. Anthrophony distribution dominates urban land uses in all hours of the day but expands during the day and evening and contracts at night and in dusk hours. The procedures presented here illustrate how qualitative information regarding quiet areas can be integrated into German noise action planning.

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“…It has been established that combinations of AIs are more effective for predicting bioacoustic activity than individual indices (Towsey et al, 2014;Buxton et al, 2018b). On the other hand, some indices are correlated with each other (Cifuentes et al, 2021;Lawrence et al, 2022). We grouped the indices using principal component analysis, which allowed us to reduce the number of variables while retaining a significant part of the variance of the original variables (≥80% for three PCs).…”

Section: Aismentioning

confidence: 99%

A Soundscape Assessment of the Oak Forests in the National Park “Homilshanski Lisy” (Northeastern Ukraine)

Atemasov

Atemasova

2023

Ekológia (Bratislava)

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We investigated the properties of the sounds recorded on the territory of the National Park “Homilshanski Lisy” (Kharkiv region, Ukraine). Recordings were made at five points (in mature, middle-aged, and young oak forests, overgrown clear-cut and aspen forests). Data collection was carried out using on-site positioning of AudioMoth autonomous recorders, located on trees at a height of 1.5 m. The recording was made from April 11 to July 10, 2020, for 3 h in the morning and evening with a 5-min duration followed by a 10-min pause (24 recordings per day). Six acoustic indices (AIs) were calculated: Acoustic complexity index (ACI), acoustic diversity index (ADI), acoustic evenness index (AEI), bioacoustic index (BI), normalized difference soundscape index (NDSI), and acoustic entropy index (H). For the analysis, we used the Friedman test as well as a nonparametric analysis of the variance of the distance matrix and Tukey’s test. The results of the analysis showed the statistical significance of the influence of forest type, date and time of recording, as well as the effect of their pairwise interactions on all six acoustic indices, both in the morning and evening. For three indices – ACI, BI, and NDSI – the highest average values were noted in a mature oak forest and the lowest was in overgrown clear-cuts. We performed a PCA to reduce the number of variables and obtain insight into the variable relevance. The cumulative percentage of variance, explained by the first three principal components, is 84.5%. The first principal component is associated with H, BI, AEI, and ADI. The second and third principal components are associated with NDSI and ACI. The obtained results correspond to the results of quantitative bird counts carried out earlier in this area.

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A widened array of metrics (WAM) approach to characterize the urban acoustic environment; a case comparison of urban mixed-use and forest

Cited by 16 publications

References 45 publications

Long-term effects of noise pollution on the avian dawn chorus: a natural experiment facilitated by the closure of an international airport

Long-term effects of noise pollution on the avian dawn chorus: a natural experiment facilitated by the closure of an international airport

Acoustic Characterization of Potential Quiet Areas in Dortmund, Germany

A Soundscape Assessment of the Oak Forests in the National Park “Homilshanski Lisy” (Northeastern Ukraine)

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