The importance of changing urban scenery in the assessment of citizens’ soundscape perception. On the need for different time-related points of view

Abstract

The city of Granada is experimenting a big urban transformation, attending national and international commitments on clean air, energy efficiency and savings linked to greenhouse gases reduction strategies and sustainable development action plans. This situation constitutes a good scenario for new noise control approaches that take into account the sound variable and citizens empowering in urban design, such as the soundscape assessment of urban territory. In this way, soundscape tools have been used in Granada as a complementary method for environmental noise characterisation where traditional noise control techniques are difficult to be carried out or give limited results. After 2016 strategic noise map and in the preparation of the new noise action plan, the city came across a great acoustic challenge in a new area located outskirts characterised by growing urbanisation, still under development, the greatest legal protection because of sensitive teaching and hospital buildings and the greatest noise exposure from nearby ring-way supporting heavy traffic flow. As quiet urban areas are not characterised by the absence of noise but for the presence of the right noise, this research intended to provide the local administration with results and proposals to transform this conflict area in a pleasant or quiet urban place. Main results came from important and significative differences in morning and evening characterisation, as great differences appear in soundscape assessment over the day and along the soundwalk path, indicating the importance of time and local issues to adequately characterised citizens perception to be considered by administration in the development of strategies and effective noise control actions.

How Should Soundscape Optimization from Perceived Soundscape Elements in Urban Forests by the Riverside Be Performed?

“…Sound sources in urban forests are generated by nature or human activity. Thus, soundscapes include the superposition and mixing of geophony, biophony, and anthrophony in urban forests [29]. We considered optimal soundscape to be when a perceptual balance is reached among these three soundscape elements.…”

Perceived Restorative Potential of Urban Parks by Citizens—A Case Study from Wrocław, Poland

“…Natural: sounds of birds, insects, wind, and water. Some of them clearly presented the results in a cluster, which was an inspiration to create a comparative analysis cluster for each study site [8,21,22] (Supplementary Materials S2).…”