Acoustic measures of biodiversity and human disturbance - a study in the UK Yorkshire Dales National Park

Abstract

The Ingleborough Soundscape Project's study involved long-term monitoring of sonic environment of an ancient woodland and newly rewilded moorland site in order to contrast biodiversity and human disturbance. Both sites are located in the Ribble Valley located 6 km north of the village of Horton in Ribblesdale. They lie in the NW area of the Yorkshire Dales national park in the UK. The sites are affected by both road and rail noise and by overflights. The ancient woodland (Colt Park Wood (CPW) lies 380m from the nearest road and South House Moor (SHM) is located over three times that distance (1220m). The primary aim was to propose a simple, low-cost acoustical metric by which non-experts can measure the success of contrasting wildness interventions. This metric, which uses raw acoustic and ground-truthed data obtained from CPW and SHM, is an updated version of 'Acoustically Enhanced Ecological Richness' (AEER), as initially proposed by Agius. Additionally, human impact was gauged by predicting noise exposure and converting to tranquillity levels using Tranquillity Rating Prediction Tool (TRAPT) and plotting contours across the study sites.