Abstract
Noise from neighbours has been shown to be one of the most noise annoying sources in Germany, but research on the influencing factors for the annoyance ratings is scarce. Therefore, we investigated whether different personal and contextual (social, physical) factors contribute to neighbour noise annoyance to better understand the neighbour noise annoyance situation. A population-representative survey in four areas in Germany was conducted, with each area further stratified according to their density of agglomeration (inner city, urban outskirt, rural area). Randomly selected residents from each area were invited by mail to participate in the study, either online or via a paper–pencil mode. Noise annoyance was assessed for different noise sources (e.g., neighbourhood, road, railway, aircrafts, different types of industry). In total, 1973 questionnaires were completed. We identified several factors to be predictive of neighbour noise annoyance: satisfaction with the neighbourhood, relationship with neighbours, residential satisfaction, noise sensitivity, and density of agglomeration for people living in the inner city in comparison to rural areas. Particularly, social aspects such as the relationship with neighbours and satisfaction with the neighbourhood have been shown to affect neighbour noise annoyance.
Highlights
In many countries, there has been a growing trend towards urbanization in the past decades; i.e., a growing number of people live in cities
The results indicated that neighbour noise annoyance was predictive of depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance
It is hypothesized that several physical, social, and personal factors at least partly predict annoyance due to neighbour noise; in particular, we investigate for the first time the effect of the relationship to neighbours as a potential predictor of neighbour noise annoyance
Summary
There has been a growing trend towards urbanization in the past decades; i.e., a growing number of people live in cities. Cities are becoming increasingly densely populated; i.e., a higher number of people live in spatial proximity to each other. Facilities to meet people’s daily needs are being opened in these densely populated areas. There are more potential noise sources present in people’s neighbourhoods. It has been shown that this trend has shifted in Germany, with more residents moving from cities to surrounding lower density regions [1]. Cities remain highly dense and, for reasons of sustainability, policy prefers the densification of urban areas [2]
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