Recreation noise in acoustic mapping

Abstract

As far as most of citizens complains are about noise coming from recreational activities, usually related with the presence of people in the street around bars, pubs, parties and other activities carried out in public spaces, it seems reasonable to include this kind of noise source in the strategic noise maps, especially if the main objective of the noise mapping is to draw action plans. A methodology is proposed to analyze that kind of noise environments including short-term and long-term measurements, obtaining the acoustic indicators Ln and Lden as well as number of people exposed to those indicators. The results obtained in six different cities show that similar trends can be found for commercial streets in different cities, showing an increase of 5 dBA in Leq between 5 p.m and 8 p.m compared to the average value of Leq during the rest of day time. Night recreational noise seems more variable and an in field study must be carried out. It has also been found that around 10% of population is exposed to noise coming from commercial streets.