Abstract
Growth in the commercialization, mobility and urbanization of human settlements across the globe has greatly exposed world urban population to potentially harmful noise levels. The situation is more disturbing in developing countries like Nigeria, where there are no sacrosanct noise laws and regulations. This study characterized noise pollution levels in Ibadan and Ile-Ife, two urban areas of Southwestern Nigeria that have experienced significant increases in population and land use activities. Eight hundred noise measurements, taken at 20 different positions in the morning, afternoon, and evening of carefully selected weekdays, in each urban area, were used for this study. Findings put the average noise levels in the urban centers at between 53 dB(A) and 89 dB (A), a far cry from the World Health Organization (WHO) permissible limits in all the land use types, with highest noise pollution levels recorded for transportation, commercial, residential and educational land use types. The result of the one-way ANOVA test carried out on the dependent variable noise and fixed factor land use types reveals a statistically significant mean noise levels across the study area (F(3,34) = 15.13, p = 0.000). The study underscores noise pollution monitoring and the urgent need to control urban noise pollution with appropriate and effective policies.
Highlights
One of the environments most influenced by man are urban settlements [1,2,3,4]
The noise level readings for Ibadan show that the highest noise levels were recorded on Fridays, followed by Mondays, while the least noise levels were recorded on Sundays (Figure 3)
The summary of the total noise levels in both Ibadan and Ile-Ife, which reveals that 79.33% of sampled locations in both cities exceed the recommended noise levels, suggesting that noise has become a major pollutant in these cities
Summary
One of the environments most influenced by man are urban settlements [1,2,3,4]. Evolving from the primitive settlements that existed thousands of years ago, and which were characterized by crude technology meant only for feeding, sheltering, clothing, and survival, urban settlements have grown into contemporary, highly complex, and interwoven existing societies, such as towns, cities, and mega cities, which are largely driven by sophisticated technologies developed to provide, basic human needs, and services than run the day-to-day, diversified socio-economic and political activities of modern man [3,5]. Noise is determined by the physical and emotional frame of the person or people exposed to it This subjectivity was described by Job [46] as noise sensitivity, which affects the internal states, including physiological, psychological, and attitudinal makeup of individuals, which increases their degree of reactivity to noise. This suggests that noise reflects certain interrelationships between the attitudes of a person, the desire for its control through standards, and the characteristics of the physical stimulus of each type of sound. Characterization of noise levels across the study areas was achieved by using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to map out noise risk exposure, compare ambient noise levels, and evaluate the relationship between land use and urban noise level
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