Evaluation and analysis of traffic noise in different zones of Faisalabad – an industrial city of Pakistan

Abstract

Noise is surely one of the most undesirable by-products of the modern mechanized lifestyle. We see the rush and the fights between the masses relating to the traffic laws everywhere, their violations and their after-shocks. To assess the noise levels in busy roads of Faisalabad, a study was conducted at three different times of a day i.e. morning (9:00 am), noon (3:00 pm) and evening (6:00 pm). Out of a total of 85 sites, 6 sites at morning time, 52 sites at noon time and 27 sites at evening time were exceeding the permissible limit set by Pak-EPA (NEQS). The maximum noise levels recorded were 101.7 dB (A) at State Bank Road, 107.9 dB(A) at Jhal Pull and 107.9 dB(A) at Ayub Agricultural Research Institute (AARI) at morning, noon and evening, respectively. At the same time, the minimum noise levels recorded were 68.3(A) dB at Jhang Bazar, 75.7 dB(A) at Nishat Abad Pull and 71.3 dB (A) was at Jamia Chistian Chowk in morning, noon and evening, respectively. Overall maximum noise level of 107.9 dB(A) was found at two sites, and the minimum noise level was 68.3 dB(A).

Urban Noise Pollution Assessment and its Non-Auditory Health Effects on the Residents of Chiniot and Jhang, Punjab, Pakistan

“…2). This outcome remained consistent in all the categorized areas included in the study and in line with the previous ndings (Doygun et al 2016;Purwaningsih et al 2018). The high tra c density is responsible for high noise pollution (Khan et al 2018), whereas urban noise is signi cantly decreased in low tra c areas (Tezel et al 2019).…”

“…It is thought that the excessive noise levels in the urban environment is due to the industries (Bamane et al 2019;Zeydabadi et al 2019), community noise (Picaut et al 2019;Bridger et al 2019;Wilson 2019), and tra c on the roads (Cramer et al 2019;Jørgensen et al 2019;Paiva et al 2019;Cai et al 2019). It was observed from the previous studies that many sites in Faisalabad, Pakistan have SPLeq > 100 dB, which were exceeding the permissible limits of Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Farooqi et al 2017). Urban noise is not only the issue in Pakistan, but also in most parts of the world.…”

“…The urban noise pollution is recognized as a major problem for the quality of life in metropolitan cities all over the world (Ozer et al 2009;Fredianelli et al 2019). As an important environmental element with social and aesthetic attributes, the quality of soundscape is one of the most important factors for environmental perception (Brown and Muhar 2004;Kang 2006;Yong et al 2011;.…”

“…It is also reported that urban noise signi cantly affect the property prices by 24.4% (Zheng et al 2020). The main causes of urban noise are the industries and their processes (Liu et al 2019;Farooqi et al 2020), and increasing tra c density in the cities due to population increase growth. Tra c vehicles use horns openly which cause noise more than the industrial processes does .…”

GIS-based mapping and assessment of noise pollution in Safranbolu, Karabuk, Turkey

“…Many studies have shown that short-and long-term exposure to noise not only reduces human hearing, but also increases blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, anxiety and insomnia. Thus, noise exposure leads an increase in drug use and visits to hospitals (Farooqi et al 2017). The noise caused by urban traffic can lead to increased heart diseases (Singh et al 2018).…”