Abstract
Due to the rapid urban development and massive population increase
in many eastern cities, the difference in urban density and morphology
between typical western and eastern cities is becoming significant.
This consequently makes the noise distribution in the eastern cities
rather different from typical low density European cities. In this
research, two representative cities with different urban densities,
Greater Manchester in the UK and Wuhan in China, were selected, which
have low and high average urban density respectively, and also have
considerable differences in building form and traffic pattern. In
the mean time, these two cities have similar urban scale and traffic
amount. In each city, based on the urban morphological analyses considering
urban land-use, building and road density, and noise source distribution,
a number of typical urban areas, 500 * 500 m2 each, were sampled.
A noise-mapping software package was then used to generate generic
noise maps, based on existing digital vector maps for terrain and
building, and traffic data obtained by on-site measurements. The
comparison results show that the average and minimum noise level
in Greater Manchester samples is generally higher than that in Wuhan
samples, while the maximum noise level in Wuhan samples is mostly
higher. By developing a Matlab program, correlations have been analysed
between noise distributions and the urban characteristics relating
to urban density, such as the road and building coverage ratio. Overall,
comparisons between these two typical cities have shown significant
effects of urban morphology on the traffic noise distribution.
Users
Please
log in to take part in the discussion (add own reviews or comments).