Relationship between urban development patterns and noise complaints in England

Tong, Hanxing; Kang, Jian

doi:10.1177/2399808320930247

Cited by 20 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…It is important to get such information at city scale because it will reflect trends in reaction to environmental noise from the population, e.g., through noise complaints; indeed, recent research in UK cities has shown that noise complaints patterns will vary depending on urban structure and population factors: noise complaints are likely to be higher in service-oriented cities with high population densities; large and clustered cities also have a higher prevalence of noise complaints compared to others, while fragmented cities are likely to have less noise complaints [10]. Nevertheless, while relevant from a noise exposure and public health perspective, the indicators used for noise maps are not necessarily representative of noticeable changes in the acoustic environment at specific locations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the changing urban sound environment during the COVID-19 lockdown period using short-term acoustic measurements

et al. 2020

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The implementation of lockdown measures due to the COVID-19 outbreak has resulted in wide-ranging social and environmental implications. Among the environmental impacts is a decrease in urban noise levels which has so far been observed at the city scale via noise mapping efforts conducted through the framework of the Environmental Noise Directive. This study aims to understand how lockdown measures have manifested at a local level to better determine how the person-level experience of the urban soundscape has been affected and how these affects differ across urban space typologies. Taking London as a case study, a series of 30-second binaural recordings were taken at 11 locations representing a cross-section of urban public spaces with varying compositions of sound sources during Spring 2019 (pre-lockdown, N = 620) and Spring 2020 (during-lockdown, N = 481). Five acoustic and psychoacoustic metrics (LAeq, LA10, LA90, Loudness, Sharpness) were calculated for each recording and their changes from the pre-lockdown scenario to the lockdown scenario are investigated. Clustering analysis was performed which grouped the locations into 3 types of urban settings based on their acoustic characteristics. An average reduction of 5.4 dB (LAeq) was observed, however significant differences in the degree of reduction were found across the locations, ranging from a 10.7 dB to a 1.2 dB reduction. This study confirms the general reduction in noise levels due to the nationally imposed lockdown measures, identifies trends which vary depending on the urban context and discusses the implications for the limits of urban noise reduction.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the changing urban sound environment during the COVID-19 lockdown period using short-term acoustic measurements

et al. 2020

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“…A study in London observed a spatially heterogeneous noise reduction ranging from 1.2 to 10.7 dB [ 23 ]. This is not surprising, as noise levels in cities are determined by not only the amount of traffic, but also by urban morphology (e.g., land use, traffic network design, building layout and façade orientation, and green space ratio) [ 24 , 25 , 26 ]. Traffic flow composition was also altered.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

University Students’ Self-Rated Health in Relation to Perceived Acoustic Environment during the COVID-19 Home Quarantine

Dzhambov

Stoyanov

Petrova

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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Background: Online education became mandatory for many students during the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and blurred the distinction between settings where processes of stress and restoration used to take place. The lockdown also likely changed perceptions of the indoor acoustic environment (i.e., soundscape) and raised its importance. In the present study, we seek to understand how indoor soundscape related to university students’ self-rated health in Bulgaria around the time that the country was under a state of emergency declaration caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Between 17 May and 10 June 2020, we conducted a cross-sectional online survey among 323 students (median age 21 years; 31% male) from two universities in the city of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Self-rated health (SRH) was measured with a single-item. Participants were asked how frequently they heard different types of sounds while at home and how pleasant they considered each of those sounds to be. Restorative quality of the home (the “being away” dimension of the Perceived Restorativeness Scale) was measured with a single-item. A priori confounders and effect modifiers included sociodemographics, house-related characteristics, general sensitivity to environmental influences, and mental health. Our analysis strategy involved sequential exploratory factor analysis (EFA), multivariate linear and ordinal regressions, effect modification tests, and structural equation modeling (SEM). Results: EFA supported grouping perceived sounds into three distinct factors—mechanical, human, and nature sounds. Regression analyses revealed that greater exposure to mechanical sounds was consistently associated with worse SRH, whereas no significant associations were found for human and nature sounds. In SEM, exposure to mechanical sounds related to lower restorative quality of the home, and then to poorer SRH, whereas nature sounds correlated with higher restorative quality, and in turn with better SRH. Conclusions: These findings suggest a role of positive indoor soundscape and restorative quality for promoting self-rated health in times of social distancing.

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“…Road traffic noise, as the primary urban noise source and the most annoying sound source, has a pronounced effect on residents, particularly those living in roadside highrise buildings, due to their compact urban form (Brown et al, 2015;Tong and Kang, 2021). The built environment could modify the relationship between noise exposure and self-reported responses to noise, related to the wider determinants of health (Peris and Fenech, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Noise exposure of the residential areas close to urban expressways in a high-rise mountainous city

Xie

2021

Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science

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Urban expressways can generate excessive noise in the surrounding urban areas, and it tends to be more complex in mountainous cities, due to the undulating terrain, dense population and compact urban structures. This article aims to investigate the objective acoustic environment and road traffic noise exposure, including the noisy evaluation, annoyance and effect of roadside apartments in residential areas close to urban expressways in the high-density, high-rise, mountainous city of Chongqing. Three housing estates were selected for a series of field measurements, questionnaire surveys and noise mapping. There was a significant negative correlation between night-time noise levels and the distances to the urban expressway ( p < 0.01). Moreover, the differences between the daytime and night-time noise levels were generally insignificant (0.7 to 3.6 dBA) at the roadside locations. Differences in reaction to noise exposure in a variety of both person-related and housing condition variables were found, especially between roadside and non-roadside locations or residents. In addition, 75.0% of roadside residents identified the traffic noise as ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ annoying, and 66.7% of them regarded the acoustic environment as the priority environmental factor that needs to be improved. Difference in the ‘bedroom-window orientation’ had a significant effect on subjective noise evaluation. Rectangular-shaped apartments along the roadside obtain better noise reduction capacities than tower-blocks through the simulation. The acoustic performance of road cuttings, as an appropriately designed earth embankment, is improved along with deeper vertical alignment, and slope angles of 30° and 75° should be avoided.

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Relationship between urban development patterns and noise complaints in England

Cited by 20 publications

References 46 publications

Assessing the changing urban sound environment during the COVID-19 lockdown period using short-term acoustic measurements

Assessing the changing urban sound environment during the COVID-19 lockdown period using short-term acoustic measurements

University Students’ Self-Rated Health in Relation to Perceived Acoustic Environment during the COVID-19 Home Quarantine

Noise exposure of the residential areas close to urban expressways in a high-rise mountainous city

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