As acomplement to conventional noise mitigation, addition of wanted sounds, in particular sounds from water structures, has been suggested as am ethod for improving noise-polluted acoustic environments. The effect of adding water sounds to road-trafficn oise wase xplored in al istening experiment with 31 listeners. Recordings of road-trafficnoise were combined with recordings of waters sounds of varying pleasantness, and the listeners assessed the sounds on eight adjective scales, representing the perceptual dimensions Pleasantness and Eventfulness.The results showed that overall pleasantness increased when ahighly pleasant water sound wasadded to the road-trafficnoise. Forless pleasant water sounds, no effect, or adecrease in pleasantness, wasfound. In addition, pleasant water sounds increased perceivedeventfulness.

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In a field study, we explored the relationship between the soundscape and the overall quality (good - bad) of outdoor open places. Thirty three residents in down town Stockholm participated in soundwalks near their homes. Along the soundwalk route, the participants assessed six places with respect to the soundscape, the visual environment and the overall quality of the place using a questionnaire. The six locations were preselected to vary in acoustic and visual quality. A regression model with pleasantness of the auditory and visual environment as predictors explained a substantial part of the variance in assessments of the six place's overall quality. To disentangle the specific effects of auditory and visual aspects, the present study will be complemented with laboratory experiments in which visual and auditory aspects are independently manipulated.

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