Abstract
AbstractNoise is an inevitable part of daily life and has been identified as a cause of several health deficiencies across the world. It has increasingly become a significant concern on the health and well-being of people. Studies are required to advance knowledge on the sources and impacts of noise in residential neighbourhoods of Lagos State, Nigeria. Therefore, this study assesses the spatial variation of noise levels within a section of the Festac residential area in Lagos in line with noise limits specified by the World Bank Group International Finance Corporation (IFC) Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) Guidelines and the Nigerian National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) Noise Standards and Control guidelines for community noise. Data for this research come from a field study comprising measurements of noise levels from 6 observation stations and questionnaire survey with 200 respondents. The criteria for siting the stations was based on factors such as proximity to the roadside, land use and population density, while the questionnaire was administered at random to assess the peoples’ level of awareness on the sources and effects of noise. A digital sound level meter was used to measure noise level variations over a period of 3 weeks for morning, afternoon and evening periods. The measured noise levels were analysed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) statistics and the Kriging Geostatistical interpolation technique. Also, logistic regression was used to determine the relationship between the respondents’ perceptions to noise and noise levels. The results indicated that the mean noise levels were within the approximate range of 53.5 – 94.0dBA over the entire period. The highest mean noise levels occurred in the north-western part of the study area where a bus park is present. In general, the noise levels in the area surpass the recommended noise limit of 55dBA, and the logistic regression showed that morning, afternoon and evening mean noise levels were significant predictors of noise variation as perceived by the dwellers. Proper legislation to regulate human activities with respect to noise generation is highly recommended to the local, state and national legislators.
Highlights
Noise can be defined as unwanted sound, and it is produced from a multitude of sources
The highest mean noise levels were observed on Sunday (64.53dBA) and Friday (62.18dBA) while the lowest mean noise levels were observed on Wednesday (60.75dBA) and Thursday (61.12dBA)
The analysis showed that 40.30% indicated that the noise level in their neighbourhood is extremely annoying, 34.81% indicated that the annoyance noise level is moderately high, 14.36% indicated that the annoyance noise level is low while 10.50% did not respond to the question
Summary
Noise can be defined as unwanted sound, and it is produced from a multitude of sources. There are two very important attributes of sound or noise: loudness and frequency. The frequency of sound is defined by the number of pressure variations per second. The assessment of environmental sound characteristics has been an important part of research in several fields [3]. It has been applied in areas such as ecoacoustics [4, 5], urban design/planning [6,7,8], and environmental monitoring [9,10,11]
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