Abstract
Noise pollution is a critical factor and it has an important impact on public health, with the relationship between road traffic noise (RTN) and several illnesses in urban areas of particular concern. Andorra is currently developing a national strategy regarding noise pollution in their urban environments. The Ministry of Environment, Agriculture and Sustainability is trying to to identify, monitor, map and model the effects of noise pollution and design mitigation policies to reduce the impact in certain priority areas. This analysis should take into account the existence of different types of anomalous noise events (ANEs) present in the street, e.g., horns, people talking, music, and other events that coexist with RTN, to characterize the soundscape of each of the locations. This paper presents a preliminary analysis considering both the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and the duration of the ANEs to evaluate their presence in urban areas in the three different locations in Andorra la Vella and Escaldes-Engordany. The experiments conducted required a 10-h recording campaign distributed in the three locations under study, which was evaluated on two different days, one during the week and the other on the weekend. Afterwards, the data were carefully labeled and the SNR of each event was evaluated to determine the potential impact of the four categories under study: vehicles, works, city life and people.
Highlights
Noise is one of the major issues in big cities, especially noise coming from traffic, which is one of the main pollutants in urban and suburban areas that affect the quality of life of citizens [1].even more important is the fact that it has an impact on their health, and can cause health issues such as lack of concentration, sleep disturbance and stress [2]
Several European countries have reacted to this alarming increase of environmental noise pollution by approving the directives issued by the European Noise Directive (END) [4], which advocate the creation of maps to inform citizens of their exposure to noise and preparing action plans to reduce the impact of noise pollution [5]
The government is currently working on national strategies to identify, monitor, map and model the effects of noise pollution and design mitigation policies to reduce the impact in priority areas
Summary
Noise is one of the major issues in big cities, especially noise coming from traffic, which is one of the main pollutants in urban and suburban areas that affect the quality of life of citizens [1]. In 2017, the statistics were of very good quality with 52% of the records measuring excellent conditions, 37% good conditions and only 11% moderate and bad conditions (The criteria used to determine the excellent, good, moderate and bad conditions is contained in a private document owned by the Government of Andorra.) The average values of Andorra la Vella stated that 8% of days had bad conditions and around 30% of days had moderate conditions [17] These spots correspond to the most touristic and crowded areas in the country, combined with the roads with the highest traffic density. Andorra is currently developing a national strategy regarding noise pollution In this line, the Ministry of Environment, Agriculture and Sustainability is aiming to identify, monitor, map and model the effects of noise pollution and design mitigation policies to reduce the impact in the determined priority areas.
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