Abstract
Preserving the soundscape and geographic extension of quiet areas is a great challenge against the wide-spreading of environmental noise. The E.U. Environmental Noise Directive underlines the need to preserve quiet areas as a new aim for the management of noise in European countries. At the same time, due to their low population density, rural areas characterized by suitable wind are considered appropriate locations for installing wind farms. However, despite the fact that wind farms are represented as environmentally friendly projects, these plants are often viewed as visual and audible intruders, that spoil the landscape and generate noise. Even though the correlations are still unclear, it is obvious that visual impacts of wind farms could increase due to their size and coherence with respect to the rural/quiet environment. In this paper, by using the Immersive Virtual Reality technique, some visual and acoustical aspects of the impact of a wind farm on a sample of subjects were assessed and analyzed. The subjects were immersed in a virtual scenario that represented a situation of a typical rural outdoor scenario that they experienced at different distances from the wind turbines. The influence of the number and the colour of wind turbines on global, visual and auditory judgment were investigated. The main results showed that, regarding the number of wind turbines, the visual component has a weak effect on individual reactions, while the colour influences both visual and auditory individual reactions, although in a different way.
Highlights
Preserving the soundscape and geographic extension of quiet areas is a great challenge against the wide spread of environmental noise
Reality equipment different wind farm configurations were created in a 1:1 scale scenario and presented to individuals
The virtual models were created to evaluate the effects of three different components that according to the literature are known to affect individual reactions: (a) the Distance from wind turbines (WTs) and noise; (b) the number of wind turbines (Number) of WTs and noise sources; and (c) the Colour of WTs
Summary
Preserving the soundscape and geographic extension of quiet areas is a great challenge against the wide spread of environmental noise. The Environmental Noise Directive [1] points out the need to preserve natural quietness, as a resourceful land protection strategy and as a new aim for the management of noise in European countries. The Directive defines two types of quiet areas: “Quiet area in an agglomeration” (areas exposed to a value of Lden or other appropriate noise indicators less than a certain value set by the Member State) and “Quiet area in open country” (areas undisturbed by noise from traffic, industry or recreational activities). Threshold values for Lden, as well as the significance of undisturbed area are still unclear. Regarding the threshold values for Lden, it is important to point out that low sound levels do not necessarily correspond to undisturbed areas and that there is enough evidence to discount the “energetic criterion” as the criterion for defining such acoustic areas. According to Brown [2],
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