New Indicators for Noise Management of Sustainable Urban Environments

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainable urban environments in modern society cannot avoid the issue of noise. Its management is oriented toward preventing the occurrence of negative health effects such as annoyance, sleep disturbance, cardiovascular diseases and learning impairments. Studies on outbreaks usually relate the health effects of noise to regression of an average energetic dose of sound energy over a long time period, such as Leq or Lden.

In the last few years, the scientific community has started to investigate the possibility that health effects induced by prolonged noise exposure should be studied in conjunction with other features of noise. Among these remarkable effects are its intensity variation over time, impulsivity of events, frequency distribution, and psychoacoustic parameters. Peak levels, maximum levels, and variability can significantly influence the perception of nuisance, and citizens may complain more about single high levels of noise rather than average exposure. This can be the origin of flaws in dose–effect relationships for annoyance or sleep disturbance.

Research should be looking at new metric or longitudinal studies to distinguish between different sound sources with respect to their sound quality in terms of frequency, time pattern (fluctuation and emergence), and psychoacoustic indices, because a differential human reaction to sound sources is increasingly evident. However, cross-sectional studies employing a more detailed soundscape description (including background) using competing sound indices are also useful to better understand human response in terms of the broad spectrum of potential adverse effects on health and quality of life. While scientific progress has been made in the last few years, it is still necessary to increase public awareness, both in geographical terms and for workers in specific sectors such as the marine industry.

This Special Issue welcomes papers focused on studying new metrics, indicators, or evaluation methods for noise exposure, and its correlation with annoyance or other health effects, thus not relying only on average exposure to noise. The new findings will support the transition toward sustainable cities and neighborhoods.

Dr. Luca Fredianelli
Prof. Dr. Gaetano Licitra
Prof. Dr. André Fiebig
Guest Editors

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