Determination of Traffic Induced Noise Pollution and its Impact on City Dwellers in the Chittagong City Area

Abstract

Chittagong, the port city of Bangladesh, is one of the nosiest cities of the country. Extreme noise is very inimical for human health and environment. Noise pollution implies a discomfort and restlessness caused to humans by unwanted high intensity sound. Motorized traffic is one of the major sources of producing noise in Chittagong city. The present paper deals with determining the level of the noise pollution in Chittagong city area and its impact on city dwellers. In this study noise levels have been measured with digital sound level meter at eight different places of Chittagong city from 6:00 am to 9:00 pm during working days. Time weighted average noise level has been measured at the road side. The data have been analyzed to compute the average, maximum and minimum noise level in decibel (dB) with respect to traffic volume. From the study it was observed that the highest noise level in the road side in Chittagong city was 112 dB found at New Market and 2 No gate traffic area, which for exceeded the acceptable limit of 60 dB set by the Government of Bangladesh and minimum sound level 67 dB was recorded at GEC traffic area. The highest average value is 109.66 dB found at 2 No gate traffic area and lowest average value is 68.7 dB found at GEC traffic area. Questionnaire survey was done during the study to determine the health impact on the city dwellers. Most of the common problems, the dwellers suffering from noise pollution are headache, bed temper, sleeplessness, aggravation, hearing problems etc.

Assessment of Potential Health Risk Due to Traffic-Induced Sound Pollution: A Study in Khulna City, Bangladesh

“…There are some research works on sound pollution, especially in the main noisy traffic points of the metropolitan area (Oguntunde et al, 2019;Sultana et al, 2020;Uddin et al, 2018). Many factors contribute to higher sound levels.…”

“…Sound pollution on city streets can be caused mainly by the hydraulic horns of vehicles employed by buses, trucks, and scooters on the crowded urban roads which are dangerous for citizens (Sperling, 2018). Sound pollution can be often caused also by construction activities (Rahman et al, 2022), industrial activities, and miking on the crowded streets (Uddin et al, 2018).…”

“…Immeasurable people in Bangladesh face several health risks due to sound pollution. Recent studies have shown that noise levels are higher at different points in the city center of Magura (Das et al, 2018), Chittagong (Uddin et al, 2018), Sylhet (Das and Basak, 2020), Khulna (Sultana et al, 2020), Mymensingh (Hasan et al, 2021), and Dhaka (Parvin, 2021). It is becoming an unreasonable intervention to slowly but surely impose human well-being, health (physical and psychological), and quality of life (Islam et al, 2015;Masoudzadeh et al, 2017, Oguntunde et al, 2019Sultana et al, 2020).…”

Evaluation of Noise Environment and Noise Mapping with ArcGIS in Chittagong City, Bangladesh

“…7,8) After air and water pollution, noise pollution is considered to the third most hazardous type of pollution according to world health organization (WHO). 9,10) Noise can affect human health in several ways such as sleep disturbance, annoyance reaction, mental sickness, hearing loss etc. 11) Noise pollution is becoming a potential nuisance in the urban areas of many Asian countries because of rapid population growth and urbanization.…”

“…16) Uddin, Hoque, Islam 10) measured the noise pollution levels in the Chittagong City at eight different places during working days from 6:00 am to 9:00 pm and a maximum sound level of 112.0 dB(A) was found at New Market and 2 No gate traffic area while a minimum sound level of 67.0 dB(A) was obtained at GEC traffic area. Despite several studies were conducted in the Chittagong region 2,10,21,24) and other large cities Dhaka, Sylhet, Khulna, Magura, Tangail 12,16,22,[25][26][27] of Bangladesh but no comprehensive study has been done on Chittagong based on noise mapping to date. Only one such study for Dhaka City was conducted which illustrated noise mapping.…”