scholarly journals Are urban noise pollution levels decreasing?

2010 ◽  
Vol 127 (4) ◽  
pp. 2107-2109 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Arana
2021 ◽  
Vol 263 (6) ◽  
pp. 206-214
Author(s):  
David Montes-González ◽  
Juan Miguel Barrigón-Morillas ◽  
Ana Cristina Bejarano-Quintas ◽  
Manuel Parejo-Pizarro ◽  
Guillermo Rey-Gozalo ◽  
...  

The pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) led to the need for drastic control measures around the world to reduce the impact on the health of the population. The confinement of people in their homes resulted in a significant reduction in human activity at every level (economic, social, industrial, etc.), which was reflected in a decrease in environmental pollution levels. Studying the evolution of parameters, such as the level of environmental noise caused by vehicle traffic in urban environments, makes it possible to assess the impact of this type of measure. This paper presents a case study of the acoustic situation in Cáceres (Spain) during the restriction period by means of long-term acoustic measurements at various points of the city.


Author(s):  
Neelima S. Naik

Noise pollution in urban areas is recognized as a major environmental concern in India. The lack of infrastructure and fast paced life in major metropolitan cities of India has made the urban environment extremely crowded, busy as well as noisy and as a result the millions of people living in the major metropolitan areas are suffering from the impacts of noise pollution. Noise levels are escalating at such a rate that it has become a major threat to the quality of human lives. Direct links between noise and health have been established by research conducted over the past few decades. There are several causes for urban degradation such as population migration, environmental considerations not adequately being incorporated into master plans, uncoordinated and haphazard development, weak implementation of plans and laws and inadequate institutional competences and resource crunch. This paper discusses the causal factors, impacts and the different approaches adopted by the Central Government as well as some major State Pollution Control Boards to curb the urban noise problem and the need for looking into non-conventional solutions such as Ecocity programme to bring in visible environmental improvement.


Noise Mapping ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Arana ◽  
Ricardo San Martin ◽  
Juan C. Salinas

AbstractTwo of the main objectives of the European Directive on environmental noise are, firstly, to unify acoustic indices for assessing environmental noise and, secondly, to standardize assessment methodologies. The ultimate goal is to objectively and comparably manage the impact and evolution of environmental noise caused both by urban agglomerations and by traffic infrastructures (roads, rails and airports). The use of common indices and methodologies (together with five-year plan assessment required by the authorities in charge) should show how noise pollution levels are evolving plus the effectiveness of corrective measures implemented in the action plans. In this paper, available results fromnumerous European agglomerations (with particular emphasis on Spanish agglomerations) are compared and analysed. The impact and its evolution are based on the percentage of people exposed to noise. More specifically, it demonstrates the impact caused by road traffic, which proves to be the main noise source in all agglomerations. In many cases, the results are extremely remarkable. In some case, the results are illogical. For such cases, it can be concluded that either assessment methodologies have been signifi- cantly amended or the input variables to the calculation programs have been remarkably changed. The uncertainty associated with the results is such that, in our opinion, no conclusions can be drawn concerning the effectiveness of remedial measures designed within the action plans after the Directive’s first implementation Phase.


Author(s):  
Ehsan Janati ◽  
Mohammad Ali Morowati Sharifabad ◽  
Reza Jafari Noudushan ◽  
Mohamad Javad Zare Sakhvidi ◽  
Sara Jambarsang

Introduction: The body's response to noise pollution is very similar to the way the body responds to stress, which can lead to poor health over time. In this regard, this study was conducted to determine the general health of the elderly and its relationship with traffic noise pollution in Ardakan. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 1399. Participants were 200 elderly people in Ardakan and were included in the study by random sampling. Data were collected through sound measurement with SVANTEK device, General Health Questionnaire 28 (GHQ-28). After completing the questionnaires and measurements, the collected data were entered into SPSS-19 software and descriptive statistics as well as analytical statistics including: Chi-square, regression and analysis of variance were used to analyze it. Results: The overall average sound level equivalent in decibels at all measuring stations was within the standard range. There was a significant relationship between noise annoyance and the dimensions of "anxiety symptoms and sleep disorders" and "depressive symptoms" of general health (p <0.001). Conclusion: People with more voice annoyance have more anxiety, sleep disorders and depression. Existence of noise pollution levels in the allowable or standard level can lead to the observation of no significant relationship between traffic noise pollution levels and general health. Reducing anxiety, depression and sleep disorders in the elderly is possible with interventions to reduce voice irritation in them.  


2021 ◽  
pp. 2150027
Author(s):  
Junlan Nie ◽  
Ruibo Gao ◽  
Ye Kang

Prediction of urban noise is becoming more significant for tackling noise pollution and protecting human mental health. However, the existing noise prediction algorithms neglected not only the correlation between noise regions, but also the nonlinearity and sparsity of the data, which resulted in low accuracy of filling in the missing entries of data. In this paper, we propose a model based on multiple views and kernel-matrix tensor decomposition to predict the noise situation at different times of day in each region. We first construct a kernel tensor decomposition model by using kernel mapping in order to speed decomposition rate and realize stable estimate the prediction system. Then, we analyze and compute the cause of the noise from multiple views including computing the similarity of regions and the correlation between noise categories by kernel distance, which improves the credibility to infer the noise situation and the categories of regions. Finally, we devise a prediction algorithm based on the kernel-matrix tensor factorization model. We evaluate our method with a real dataset, and the experiments to verify the advantages of our method compared with other existing baselines.


2003 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 2439-2439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Rivas ◽  
Ricardo Hernandez ◽  
Jose Luis Cueto

2002 ◽  
Vol 112 (5) ◽  
pp. 2375-2375
Author(s):  
Paulo H. T. Zannin ◽  
Fabiano B. Diniz
Keyword(s):  

1992 ◽  
Vol 42 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 201-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Rene Serra ◽  
Carlos A. Frassoni ◽  
Ana Maria Verzini de Romera ◽  
Ester Cristina Biassoni de Serra

2017 ◽  
Vol 117 ◽  
pp. 219-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Aumond ◽  
Catherine Lavandier ◽  
Carlos Ribeiro ◽  
Elisa Gonzalez Boix ◽  
Kennedy Kambona ◽  
...  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document