Abstract
The urban environmental planning, a fundamental dynamic process for cities’ sustainability, could benefit from the soundscape approach, dealing with the perception of the acoustic environment in which sound is considered as a resource rather than a waste (noise). Noise and soundscape maps are useful tools for planning mitigation actions and for communication with citizens. Both mappings can benefit from crowdsourcing and participatory sound monitoring that has been made possible due to the large use of internet connections and mobile devices with dedicated apps. This paper is a “scoping review” to provide an overview of the potential, benefits, and drawbacks of participatory noise monitoring in noise and soundscape mapping applications, while also referring to metrological aspects. Gathering perceptual data on soundscapes by using digital questionnaires will likely be more commonly used than printed questionnaires; thus, the main differences between the experimental protocols concern the measurement of acoustic data. The authors propose to classify experimental protocols for in-field soundscape surveys into three types (GUIDE, MONITOR, and SMART) to be selected according to the survey’s objectives and the territorial extension. The main future developments are expected to be related to progress in smartphone hardware and software, to the growth of social networks data analysis, as well as to the implementation of machine learning techniques.
Highlights
Urbanization is expected to continue in the future, causing an increase in the number of people living in cities to reach up to 6.5 billion by 2050 [1]
Another fundamental aspect is the perception of the acoustic environment which is the focus of “soundscape”, a multi-criteria concept introduced in the late 1960s dealing with how acoustic environments would affect the perceived quality of cities and how sounds could be used in urban planning and design [3,4]
If 4G data communication standard is used, the price of data transmission may become a significant factor in the deployment of the sensor network and, for this reason, the transmission can often be limited to those instances where the smartphone can connect to the internet free of charge
Summary
Urbanization is expected to continue in the future, causing an increase in the number of people living in cities to reach up to 6.5 billion by 2050 [1]. The rapid growth of these developments offers very interesting and promising perspectives to the so-called “smart city” approach, dealing with management tools combining solutions from different fields (energy efficiency, human living and environment, economy, and governance) This approach faces the challenge to engage with citizens and promote a user-centered approach to the urban context, in order to inspire the desired changes [17]. Though not built for sensing, can be readily used as sensors: the built-in camera provides video and images; the microphone, when not used for voice communications, can act as an acoustic sensor; the embedded GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver can provide location information Other embedded sensors, such as a gyroscope, accelerometer, and proximity sensor can collectively be used to estimate useful contextual information (e.g., if the user is walking or moving by bicycle). Participatory sensing enables the active involvement of citizens in environmental issues, which is an important topic that is acknowledged by the European Directive 2003/35/EC on providing and improving public participation on environmental topics [38]
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