Article,
Are adverse impacts of neighbourhood noisy areas the flip side of quiet area benefits?
Applied Acoustics, (2007)
Abstract
Soundscape researchers have studied how localized areas of noise and
quiet within a neighbourhood have an effect upon residential noise
annoyance. In this paper, noisy and quiet areas are studied simultaneously
using data from three surveys and a noise mapping effort for Oslo.
Results indicate that noisy neighbourhoods have the potential to
increase residential noise annoyance primarily for apartments exposed
to low residential noise levels whereas quiet neighbourhood areas
have the potential to reduce noise annoyance the most at intermediate
and high residential noise levels. Adverse neighbourhood soundscapes
are shown to increase residential noise annoyance also after adjusting
for possible absence of quiet areas. Whereas Swedish research results
document benefits of living in an apartment having access to a quiet
facade, no beneficial impacts of quiet neighbourhood areas were found.
Results indicate that adjustment factors for apartment having quiet
façades and/or adverse soundscapes respectively, can be independently
applied.
