Abstract
BackgroundIn recent years, residential green and availability of neighbourhood green spaces came into focus as a potential means to reduce transportation noise annoyance. Literature suggests that various characteristics of residential green may play a role, namely, greenness of the residential areas as quantified by the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), visible vegetation from home, and the presence of public green spaces as identified by land use classification data (LU-green), as well as their accessibility and noise pollution (i.e., transportation noise exposure within green areas, how loud/quiet they are). So far, studies mostly focused on road traffic noise in urban areas. ObjectiveWe investigated the effects of residential green on noise annoyance, accounting for different transportation noise sources as well as for the degree of urbanisation. MethodsWe complemented the data set of the recent Swiss SiRENE survey on road traffic, railway and aircraft noise annoyance with a wide range of “green” metrics, and investigated their association with annoyance by means of logistic regression analysis (generalized estimating equations). ResultsIncreasing residential green was found to be associated with reduced road traffic and railway noise annoyance, but increased aircraft noise annoyance. The overall effect corresponded to equivalent level reductions of about 6 dB for road traffic and 3 dB for railway noise, but to an increase of about 10 dB for aircraft noise, when residential green increased from “not much green” (5th percentile of the study sample distribution) to “a lot of green” (95th percentile). Overall, NDVI and LU-green were particularly strongly linked to annoyance. The effects of visible vegetation from home and accessibility and/or quietness of green spaces were, overall, less strong, but depended on the degree of urbanisation. For road traffic noise, visible vegetation and accessibility of green spaces seem to particularly strongly reduce annoyance in cities, while quiet green spaces are more effective in rural areas. ConclusionsOur study emphasizes that residential green should be fostered by city planners, particularly in densely populated areas.
Highlights
Urban areas are steadily growing in size and population
The level reduction for road traffic noise is similar to the 5 dB mentioned by Lercher (1996), but smaller than the 10 dB estimated by Van Renterghem (2019)
Residential green was found to be associated with reduced road traffic and railway noise annoyance
Summary
Urban areas are steadily growing in size and population. While in 1955 less than 55% of Europe’s population lived in urban regions, this increased to more than 74% in 2019 (Worldometer, 2020). There is strong evidence from the literature that residential green, i.e., the greenness of Environment International 143 (2020) 105885 one’s living environment, may reduce noise-induced psychological and physiological stress (Chang et al, 2008) and a wide range of negative health impacts, such as noise annoyance (Van Renterghem, 2019), hypertension (Dzhambov et al, 2018a), or even mortality (Orioli et al, 2019; Vienneau et al, 2017) These beneficial effects are fostered by so called building capacities (promoting physical activity and social cohesion) as well as restoration (Markevych et al, 2017). Conclusions: Our study emphasizes that residential green should be fostered by city planners, in densely populated areas
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
