Speaker
Description
Strategic noise maps based on sound emission and propagation modelling help identify overexposed areas using weighted annual average noise level indicators such as Lden and Lnight. While providing large-scale, objective data to plan noise mitigation strategies, acoustic metrics retrieved from strategic noise maps can oversimplify and downplay characteristics of the acoustic environment linked to noise annoyance and sleep disturbance. To address this gap, the citizen science project De Oorzaak first deployed a large-scale Internet-of-Things-based acoustic sensor network, for one year in Antwerp, Ghent, and Leuven, with 1,484 citizen scientists installing a Class-2 smart sound sensor outside their bedroom window for continuous six-week measurement periods. In parallel, a questionnaire was sent each week in order to get a detailed view of the respondents’ noise perception. The resulting data will enable a finer-grained exploration of the acoustic environment, including time-varying patterns, soundscape pattern, and identifiable noise events and their sound sources. By linking these objective measurements with the subjective survey responses this study offers a more nuanced perspective on how environmental noise drives annoyance at the population level.