Sound grade classification with sound mapping of national park trails in South Korea

Abstract

Most of the national parks in South Korea are exposed to noise pollution caused by urban noise from adjacent cities. Especially, the road-traffic noise from the roads passing through or surrounding the parks has increased the exposure. In addition, the military and tele-communication facilities located in ecologically sensitive highlands are noise sources and affect nearby ecosystems. Therefore, it is important to preserve and maintain a comfortable sound environment to ensure the quality of the park trails for visitors and the habitat of animals and plants. The purpose of this study is to map a sound environment of national parks in South Korea and to classify sound grades of park trails. The park trails were categorized into 5 different groups based on acoustic factors such as noise level, loudness, sharpness, roughness, and tonality, and environmental factors such as land-use, ground coverage, vegetation type, and relative location which can be obtained from biotope map and GIS DB. This classification was based on factor analysis and cluster analysis. It is expected that this sound grade classification of the national park trails meets the right of visitors to know the sound environment, and that the managers of national parks can use it as a guideline to create a positive sound environment.