Abstract
Levenhagen, M. J., Z. D. Miller, A. R. Petrelli, L. A. Ferguson, Y.-H. Shr, B. Taff, K. M. Fristrup, C. J. W. McClure, S. Burson, M. Giamellaro, P. Newman, C. D. Francis, and J. R. Barber. 2021. Does experimentally quieting traffic noise benefit people and birds? Ecology and Society 26(2):32. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-12277-260232
Highlights
A 60% increase in global road length is anticipated by 2050, or 25 million more kilometers of roadway than existed in 2010 (Dulac 2013)
Our mitigation approach lowered sound levels during sign-present weeks, yet there was no relationship between bird space use near roadways and traffic noise, perhaps due to the increased duration of noise exposure created by lower speed limits
Our results demonstrate that signs are an effective noise mitigation strategy with significant positive impacts on visitor soundscape experience, we note that our study had limitations
Summary
A 60% increase in global road length is anticipated by 2050, or 25 million more kilometers of roadway than existed in 2010 (Dulac 2013). In addition to decreasing habitat, roads fragment landscapes, dramatically increase land colonization, and lead to overexploitation of wildlife and other natural resources (Laurance et al 2014, Ibisch et al 2016). Traffic on roads comes with an additional suite of problems that are difficult to disentangle, including visual disturbance, large-scale deposition of chemical pollutants, direct mortality from collisions, and substantial noise pollution (Reijnen and Foppen 2006). The traffic noise effect zone can be higher than the footprint of other road effects (Madadi et al 2017). Even protected areas are not free from traffic noise exposure; traffic is the largest source of anthropogenic noise in protected areas in the United States (Buxton et al 2017)
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