Abstract
Abstract COVID-19 has affected people’s lives in different ways from reduced mobility and staying-at-home orders to other daily life routines. These changes have, in turn, affected the quality of life in urban environments including air quality and noise. The noise aspect, for example, suggests quieter environments due to fewer vehicles on streets, and less human activities. On the other hand, staying at home may cause more activities happening at the building level, i.e., more people in buildings may make more noise for neighbors. In order to understand this nexus, the study examines the noise complaints data in Dallas, USA. To do this, the study first compares the noise complaints after the COVID-19 intercourse and the same data period in 2019. Findings surprisingly show reduced noise complaints during the COVID-19 time frame by about 14% compared to the pre-COVID-19 period. The majority of this reduction occurred in and around the city center. In other words, the noise complaints seem more spatially dispersed at the outskirts of the city. Another finding that directs more detailed analyses, however, considers the massive reduction of ridership, traffic circulation, and building permits. This needs some other techniques for determining the sources for incommensurate noise complaints.
Highlights
Once officially identified, the first COVID-19 case in China rapidly spread all over the world
As spatial analyses show, the pattern has changed from a 5-mile distance in a way that estimated marginal means during COVID-19 noise complaints increase and continues until the city morphs into suburbs while the before COVID-19 noise complaints reduce gradually with the distance from the city center
A total of 4315 noise complaint records accounted for this study show fewer reports during the COVID-19 compared to the same period of time in the previous year
Summary
The first COVID-19 case in China rapidly spread all over the world. Perhaps as a pioneer study in examining noise during the COVID-19, Aletta et al created a traffic simulation that represented noise pollution in Rome, Italy [1] Their findings report almost 65% reduction in both traffic and noise emissions during the lockdown [1]. The authors collected 8-hour normalized exposure sound data for both COVID-19 initial date and intervention date with 5,894 participants Their findings show an approximately 3 dBA noise level reduction, claiming that everyday life had less exposure to noise due to the COVID-19 restrictions. Minkoff investigated the 311 system-related engagement for the census-tract level data on government-provided goods, graffiti, and noise in New York City [16] They showed how noise complaints reflect resident behavior or built-environment features that cause annoying environmental noise [16]. Statistical analysis factored in the distance from the city center, and the time period for reporting noise complaints
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