Collecting and mapping soundscape data across the 15 UK national parks

Abstract

The soundscape approach, as understood by the ISO 12913 series, is most applied in urban settings, aiming beyond noise control in order to holistically employ its quantitative and qualitative facets. On the other side, the current understanding of the soundscape concept in bioacoustics and acoustic ecology is less focused on perception. There is generally a lot of public interest in how to preserve the opportunity for people to experience the "natural quiet" and "the sounds of nature", and the need to balance that with the protection of the natural areas and national parks from the noise that the visitors themselves generate while on site. However, specific investigations in these environments are scarce in the UK. Moreover, while there might be acoustic environments and sound sources that people identify with national parks, they are not systematically documented nor implemented in the national parks' management plans. Therefore, we propose a framework starting with a quasi-crowd-sourced acquisition of soundscape data and mapping those to a freely accessible GIS platform such as Google Earth, leading towards identifying soundscape conservation targets and management tools for the UK national parks, further raising the awareness of the value of sound as a resource.