Environmental Noise in India: a Review

Abstract

This article reviews the literature on research carried out during the last two decades on noise impacts in India to demonstrate the current status of noise pollution research in India and gaps in studies. It also summarizes future perspectives of acoustic research. The noise pollution studies over the years have focused on the monitoring, recording, modeling, geospatial mapping, and exposure-effect relationship. The review of papers demonstrated that road traffic noise is the predominant cause for annoyance among the respondents. The evidence comes mostly from studies focusing on health impacts. Only 10% of articles enumerated zone-specific noise pollution. 44.89% of articles reported details of subjective response data with the help of a questionnaire tool, while 14.3% of articles reported details about the noise in workplaces of different areas of India. Ten percent of articles attributed to the harmful effect of festive noise. Studies in relation to the physiological and sleep disturbances in Indian condition are negligible. Noise pollution limits are being breached in almost all Indian cities. Violations are the worst in urban areas. The laws should be properly implemented in India to control this ever-growing menace. The government is now working on devising new noise pollution standards. City-wise noise pollution mitigation strategies should be worked out at all levels. It is concluded that coordinated and long-term integrated noise pollution research (comprising assessment of noise descriptors, noise mapping, prediction by noise modeling, and experimental studies to demonstrate exposure-effect relationship, advanced study on acoustic absorption material) is the need of the hour.