From the costs of noise to the value of soundscape?

Abstract

The past two decades have seen an ongoing paradigm shift from noise control to soundscaping, and soundscape approaches have been widely applied in traditionally noise management projects. However, cost-benefit analysis (CBA), which is widely used for economic appraisals of projects that would impact on the sound environment, is still noise-based and residential-location-focused. As a result, benefits of wanted sounds are omitted, and only very limited receiver types and contexts are covered. While there is a wealth of literature on valuing the costs of noise and the benefits of noise reduction little research has been done on soundscape valuation, and consequently there is little evidence on the monetary value of soundscape, which is essential for developing soundscape-based CBA. Starting from the costs of noise this paper will discuss the motivation of soundscape valuation, methodology for primary soundscape valuation research, and the use of soundscape values, to contribute to the development of holistic soundscape CBA.