A survey on the soundscape perception before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy

Chiara Bartalucci,Sergio Luzzi,Raffaella Bellomini,Giulia Torelli,Paola Pulella

doi:10.1515/noise-2021-0005

Abstract

Abstract At the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of lockdown measures highlights changes in terms of sounds and noises present in the everyday life. The present paper deals with this peculiar and unexpected scenario as studied by means of an online survey consisting of 18 questions and distributed to residents in the Italian territory. For studying the unprecedented effect of the pandemic, participants were asked to fill the questionnaire, providing personal data, describing context and characteristics of the house in which they live and making a comparison of the lockdown soundscape with the pre-lockdown one. About four hundred questionnaires have been collected and analysed in order to define correlations between personal and perception variables. Using logistic regression models, changes have been studied during the two abovementioned periods. It has been observed that the perception of traffic noise has increased for people over 35 years old and the noise produced by the neighbourhood has been more statistically significant for employed respondents. Future outlook might provide the spread of the questionnaire in other countries for a global evaluation of the data, to be also acquired with reference to the after-lockdown period.

Highlights

Soundscape can be defined as “acoustic environment as perceived or experienced and/or understood by a personIn previous researches, the perception of soundscape has been mainly focused on public spaces and has been evaluated in a scenario in which people were in direct contact with the place they were invited to assess.As an example, for tourists’ and citizens’ wellbeing purposes, a study on soundscape was carried out in the area of Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill in Rome [5]
The results show that participants did not focus only on sounds, a preference in acoustics related terms is observed
Thanks to the results of the online survey promoted by the Acoustical Society of Italy (AIA) and Vie en.ro.se Ingegneria, it has been possible to compare the changes in acoustic perception in the period before the DPCM 11 March 2020 and lockdown period

Summary

Introduction

Soundscape can be defined as “acoustic environment as perceived or experienced and/or understood by a personIn previous researches, the perception of soundscape has been mainly focused on public spaces and has been evaluated in a scenario in which people were in direct contact with the (outside or inside) place they were invited to assess.As an example, for tourists’ and citizens’ wellbeing purposes, a study on soundscape was carried out in the area of Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill in Rome [5]. The perception of soundscape has been mainly focused on public spaces and has been evaluated in a scenario in which people were in direct contact with the (outside or inside) place they were invited to assess. Measurements were conducted inside and outside the area and a questionnaire was distributed to 212 subjects in nine different sites in order to collect subjective opinions among with correspondent binaural recordings. The results have been compared in correlograms related to subjective responses and acoustic and psychoacoustic parameters and show a negative or poor correlation between acoustic and psychoacoustic parameters and subjective ratings. This confirms the need for a holistic approach in evaluating the sonic environment which should

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Discussion

Conclusion