Evaluation of the changing urban soundscape in Turkey during Covid-19 pandemic through online survey

The disease caused by the virus named Covid-19 and declared as a pandemic has shortly spread worldwide. Measures taken during the pandemic has exceedingly affected the acoustic environment of the cities. Sounds are a part of the human activities in the cities;therefore, they contain information regarding city life. It is possible to understand the positive or negative impacts of the pandemic on social life by analyzing the acoustic life throughout the process. Within the scope of the study, the impacts of the changing social life in Turkey on the city acoustic were studied physically, socially, and psychologically with the soundscape approach. The study conducted accordingly is designed to understand how the Covid-19 process affected the urban soundscape. For this reason, the focus was on the answers given to the participants on their level of pleasantness with the acoustical environment before and during the pandemic, the change in the sound sources they heard, and the sounds they were pleased to hear during the pandemic. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, the study was conducted by using an online Internet survey with 690 participants across Turkey. In addition to the cities with high participation in the study and a general evaluation was made. At the end of the study, it was seen that the change in sound environment pleasantness was more pronounced, especially in the cities of high population density. In general, the audibility of nature-based sounds increased and nature-based sounds were found to be pleasing during the pandemic. © 2023, Istanbul Teknik Universitesi, Faculty of Architecture. All rights reserved.

The objective soundscape features of the Qianmen Avenue in Beijing

With the continuous development of the sensory experience urban tourism, soundscape perception has become of importance. Taking the Qianmen Avenue, a typical historical block in the Central Axis of Beijing Old City as a case study, this paper presents an analysis of the objective soundscape features just after the first climax of the COVID-19 in January 2021. Based on the model of "acoustical parameters - classifications - extraction of the keynote and signal and soundmark - SPL mapping", the case study shows that although the soundscapes of Qianmen Avenue are complex and changeable with a LAeq from 55dB to 90dB, the noisy keynotes are combined with the sales' broadcasting, loudspeakers, tourists and traffic noise;natural sounds are rarely perceived;the warning bells of passing trams are extremely loud and harsh, causing great disturbance to tourists;no clearly identifiable soundmark has been found;and there is no obvious regularity in the spatial distribution in the SPL mapping. Apart from the architectural features and recently painted murals, the soundscape is far away from the "Culture-enriched Beijing” related content that the public perceives it carries. And due to the COVID-19, an epidemic broadcasting is added as a possible signal or soundmark. © ICA 2022.All rights reserved

Objective and perceived acoustic environments during the COVID-19 lockdown: An overview of evidence

The COVID-19 pandemic took a heavy toll on population health directly, but also triggered profound changes to social life, daily mobility patterns, and activity spaces. At the beginning, public health measures for limiting the spread of the virus mandated home confinement and limited outdoor activities, which in turn reshaped typical acoustic environments for many people. This overview provides a synopsis of the evidence of changes to residential noise exposure and perceived soundscape quality and components across different contexts. Most studies reported sound level reductions in the range of 4-10 dB. Reductions were larger on weekends compared with weekdays, and in previously socially active areas compared with traffic-dominated locations. People had a clear preference for the new lockdown soundscapes. Traffic noise levels reportedly declined across various settings, allowing for natural sounds, hitherto masked, to become more prominent. © 2022 Internoise 2022 - 51st International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering. All rights reserved.

A renewed perception of living environments after restrictions due to pandemic in Italy

The rapid habitual changes induced by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic first and the end of the most restrictive phase coinciding with the lock-down later resulted in significant changes, also occurred at an environmental level and, specifically, with regard to the perception of the soundscape in all European countries. The seek for knowledge underlying the research illustrated in this article concerned whether or not the perception of the soundscape following the almost normal resumption of daily activities had returned to that of the period before the restrictions came into force. This article illustrates how an online questionnaire structured in 16 questions was designed and administered to a sample of Italian citizens, in order to understand whether and how the habits of the respondents had changed in the three reference time periods (before the pandemic spread, the period marked by lock-down or other restrictions in early 2020 and the period afterwards) and their perception of the perceived soundscape of the place where they spend most of their days. A total of around 70 questionnaires distributed throughout Italy were collected and analysed. The results obtained, through the use of descriptive statistical analyses and logistic models, are also presented in this article.

Acoustic experiences in rural school soundscapes

Studies on soundscapes have been discussed in different areas of knowledge, which provides opportunities for multiple perspectives on the topic. The research data presented in this article were produced in rural school environment. In this study, the well-known aesthetic soundwalking practice is compared to Jorge Larrosa's readings about experience, pointing out how this aesthetic practice turns to the acoustic realities of a rural school in the city of Rio Grande, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Such practice is considered to be an alternative for music appreciation in the face of music teaching models in conservatoires and/or historically ingrained in the way of listening and making music. This new rural school context, silenced and apparently immobilized by the Covid-19 pandemic, is understood as a vibrant, tense body, revealing a potent silence of sounds to be experienced. Based on artistic practices in the surroundings of a rural elementary school, the ways in which the acoustic experience took place and the processes were established are presented, in order to underline the uniqueness of this experience and the relationships established with that space.

The Sound of a Circular City: Towards a Circularity-Driven Quietness.

The circular economy paradigm can be beneficial for urban sustainability by eliminating waste and pollution, by circulating products and materials and by regenerating nature. Furthermore, under an urban circular development scheme, environmental noise can be designed out. The current noise control policies and actions, undertaken at a source-medium-receiver level, present a linearity with minimum sustainability co-benefits. A circular approach in noise control strategies and in soundscape design could offer numerous ecologically related co-benefits. The global literature documenting the advantages of the implementation of circular economy in cities has highlighted noise mitigation as a given benefit. Research involving circular economy actions such as urban green infrastructure, green walls, sustainable mobility systems and electro-mobility has acknowledged reduced noise levels as a major circularity outcome. In this research paper, we highlight the necessity of a circularity and bioeconomy approach in noise control. To this end, a preliminary experimental noise modeling study was conducted to showcase the acoustic benefits of green walls and electric vehicles in a medium-sized urban area of a Mediterranean island. The results indicate a noise level reduction at 4 dB(A) when simulating the introduction of urban circular development actions.

Revisiting Public Space Transformations from a Sonic Perspective during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how people relate to and use outdoor spaces, particularly in densely populated areas. We investigate the transformations that took place during the 2020 lockdown and the fi rst post-lockdown summer, with an emphasis on changes to the sound environment, in the context of a mixed-use central neighbourhood in Montreal (Plateau-Mont-Royal), Canada. Semi-structured interviews with thirteen residents, conducted in autumn 2020, showed how restrictions on the use of indoor spaces, including a ban on indoor gatherings, coupled with the transformation of home environments into work, study, and relaxation spaces drove Montreal residents to engage more with outdoor public spaces in their neighbourhoods. This resulted in extended uses in terms of area, activities, duration of stay and even time of use, and in new uses for activities once restricted to indoor spaces (e.g. family meals, celebrations). Sound played a critical role in these public space transformations, as the diversity of uses and activities brought back the sounds of human activity and even encouraged a sense of ‘normality’: a safe and shared form of coming together that had been lost following the COVID-19 lockdown. The study highlighted the diverse, extended roles that (outdoor) public spaces can play in everyday urban life, beyond just providing access to quiet and the sonic consequences of this use in reinforcing previously paused forms of public life. Furthermore, intentional forms of transformations of spaces, like pedestrianizations, off er fl exible amenities, impromptu musical performances and organized socializing space and fulfi lled roles previously satisfi ed by third places and eff ectively became temporary ‘fourth places’. These fi ndings provide grounds for reimagining the future of public spaces – not only in urban practice but also in the social imaginary, especially in relation to temporary interventions and programming, as well as promoting positive sound outcomes in public spaces © 2022. Built Environment.All Rights Reserved

A qualitative and quantitative synthesis of the impacts of COVID-19 on soundscapes: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

The current prolonged coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has substantially influenced numerous facets of our daily lives for over two years. Although a number of studies have explored the pandemic impacts on soundscapes worldwide, their works have not been reviewed comprehensively nor systematically, hence a lack of prospective soundscape goals based upon global evidence. This review study examines evidence of the COVID-19 crisis impacts on soundscapes and quantifies the prevalence of unprecedented changes in acoustic environments. Two key-research classes were identified based on a systematic content analysis of the 119 included studies: (1) auditory perceptual change and (2) noise level change due to the COVID-19 pandemic/lockdown. Our qualitative synthesis ascertained the substantial adverse consequences of pandemic soundscapes on human health and well-being while beneficial aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic on soundscapes were yet identified. Furthermore, meta-analysis results highlight that the observed average noise-level reduction (148 averaged samples derived from 31 studies) varied as a function of the stringency level of the COVID-19 confinement policies imposed by the governments, which would be further moderated by urban morphology and main noise sources. Given these collective findings, we propose soundscape materiality, its nexus with related the United Nations' sustainable development goals (SDGs), and prospective approaches to support resilient soundscapes during and after the pandemic, which should be achieved to enhance healthy living and human well-being.

The sonic strategies and technologies of listening alone together in The World According to Sound’s Outside In: A Communal Listening Series

This article examines three dimensions of Chris Hoff and Sam Harnett’s practices for producing, sharing and listening to audio in collective and social ways for The World According to Sound’s Outside In: the sonic strategies and soundscape design used to engage communal and collective listening, how Outside In adapts and transforms traditional paradigms using the broadcast medium of the podcast to aesthetically engage with liveness and the corporeality of sound, and how the COVID-19 pandemic afforded space for ‘unpopular’ soundwork based on everyday aural architectures (e.g., field recordings, ambient music, experimental music based on everyday sounds, soundscape collages) that are popular, as in, of the community. Using varied examples drawn from The World According to Sound’s soundwork, I illustrate a particular set of sonic strategies to imagine sonic space, listen relationally to sound events, and enact a sociality of collective listening.

Semantic and Architectural Sound Space. Musical Creativity and Performance

Sounds permeate and characterise the space;they outline and decline both our permanence in the environment and, as a consequence, also the very meaning we give to that experience, apparently implicitly and only partially consciously, which is the basis of the relationship that we live in a specific situation. Enjoying and “making” music allow the extrinsic expression of what each one is, give voice to that sphere of the Self, often unconscious or subconscious, which only partially and incompletely can find expression in spoken language. In this difficult period in which people, because of the regulations to fight the Covid-19 pandemic spread, have been denied the closeness of friends and loved ones, have been restricted the freedom of expression and movement, limited, if not deprived of work activity, music can allow a new capacity to listen to ourselves and to others. It can recompose a worn and lost Self, giving space for creative expression and a renewed awareness, thanks to which the joy of being and not of having, the inclusion and sharing capacity instead of egoic and narcissistic solipsism can be achieved. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

The Impact of Sound Sources on Perception Dimensions in Indonesian Settlements Area

The disruptive technology and Covid-19 pandemic situation caused many activities to be carried out at home. Activities at home often cause physical and mental health problems if not supported by an excellent residential environment. The United Nations also emphasized that this attention to physical and mental health is one of the sustainable issues that need to be taken seriously by paying attention to the quality of the surrounding environment. An alternative approach to improve mental health is through a soundscape approach. A soundscape is an approach that investigates the relationship between the acoustic environment and the perception of the environment it evokes. This study tried to look at the relationship between the sound source around the Indonesian settlement area and the residents' resulting perception. Resident's perception data are collected in several residential areas in Indonesia. The results of this study indicate the elements of sound sources that affect the perception of residential areas. These elements need to be regulated to improve physical and mental health in the residential area, to create a more sustainable environment for humans. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.

Sound Impressions of the Zoom-Classroom

This text presents a series of impressions on the soundscapes produced by the zoom classroom during the pandemic in Mexico. The study of sound in the educational digital environment shows how the school has lost control of the process of schooling. At the same time, it depicts the increasing difficulty of this institution to create a place to inhabit the commonplace. The text interrelates sound studies, the history of the grammar of schooling, and contemporary educational theory to study this liminal phenomenon between school, technology, and everyday life. The impressions are divided into two sections. First, I name the keynotes created by the sonic environment in the zoom-classroom. In the second section, I write about sonic relationships based on three metaphors: voice/voices, mute/mutism, and listening /listening(s). The collection of information was made from a field diary and the recordings of the sessions during three semesters in the undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Pedagogy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico during the closure of face-to-face education because of the sanitary measures to combat the Covid pandemic.

Diversity Monitoring of Coexisting Birds in Urban Forests by Integrating Spectrograms and Object-Based Image Analysis

In the context of rapid urbanization, urban foresters are actively seeking management monitoring programs that address the challenges of urban biodiversity loss. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) has attracted attention because it allows for the collection of data passively, objectively, and continuously across large areas and for extended periods. However, it continues to be a difficult subject due to the massive amount of information that audio recordings contain. Most existing automated analysis methods have limitations in their application in urban areas, with unclear ecological relevance and efficacy. To better support urban forest biodiversity monitoring, we present a novel methodology for automatically extracting bird vocalizations from spectrograms of field audio recordings, integrating object-based classification. We applied this approach to acoustic data from an urban forest in Beijing and achieved an accuracy of 93.55% (±4.78%) in vocalization recognition while requiring less than ⅛ of the time needed for traditional inspection. The difference in efficiency would become more significant as the data size increases because object-based classification allows for batch processing of spectrograms. Using the extracted vocalizations, a series of acoustic and morphological features of bird-vocalization syllables (syllable feature metrics, SFMs) could be calculated to better quantify acoustic events and describe the soundscape. A significant correlation between the SFMs and biodiversity indices was found, with 57% of the variance in species richness, 41% in Shannon’s diversity index and 38% in Simpson’s diversity index being explained by SFMs. Therefore, our proposed method provides an effective complementary tool to existing automated methods for long-term urban forest biodiversity monitoring and conservation.

Soundscape Preference of Urban Residents in China in the Post-pandemic Era.

This research aims to explore the reality of the soundscape preferences of Chinese urban residents in general public landscape in the post-pandemic era, and then to propose design recommendations to meet the practical needs of people's preferences for landscape-especially soundscapes-in the post-pandemic era. In this study, we utilized the subjective evaluation method to conduct an online questionnaire in 29 Chinese provinces which experienced severe pandemic caseloads and collected 860 valid responses. This study revealed people's preference for landscape and soundscape in the post-pandemic era. We further studied the correlation between landscape preference and soundscape preference, analyzed the influence of living conditions on soundscape preference, founded the effects of personal characteristics and living conditions on soundscape preference, and explored the strongest influence factors on soundscape preference through the establishment of automatic linear model. The results revealed a positive correlation between life happiness and soundscape preference, whereas wearing masks significantly reduced soundscape perception ratings and people who have been vaccinated are more tolerant of various noises. Moreover, based on these analysis results, the design recommendations on landscape (overall landscape, plant, and tour space), soundscape construction of caring for vulnerable groups (teenagers and children, elderly people, and disabled and unhealthy) has been discussed.

Urban Soundscape Assessment by Visually Impaired People: First Methodological Approach in Granada (Spain)

Soundscape assessments by citizens are starting to emerge as a common practice, normally carried out in context by means of soundwalks along selected paths with volunteers. However, when such assessments are carried out, either in situ or in laboratory experiments, visually impaired citizens are not usually involved. To address this question, three soundwalks were carried out in 2020 in the city of Granada, in southern Spain, with the participation of visually impaired people. In this paper, we present the lessons learnt from this research with respect to the methodology issues that have to do with soundwalking and the surveying procedures when people with limited vison are participating, the assessment results, and a comparison with a soundscape evaluation carried out in 2019 without the collaboration of visually impaired people. The results of this preliminary campaign highlight that: (1) Adapting soundscape assessment protocols from standards for visually impaired people is a methodological challenge that requires research attention;(2) Some of the different patterns in the assessment of the soundscape pleasantness between visually impaired and nonvisually impaired participants emerged;(3) The perception of quietness may differ for visually impaired people when orientation and identification are factors that play a role in the acoustic environment evaluation.

The Effects of Soundscapes in Relieving Stress in an Urban Park

Urban parks are important urban public spaces that guarantee people recreation, create positive emotions and relieve stress. Emerging research has shown that natural soundscapes are associated with restorative landscapes in urban parks. However, there is still a lack of knowledge on the use of physiological indexes to evaluate the effects of natural sounds versus human-based sounds on stress relief. In this study, the three physiological indexes of skin conductance level, heart rate and heart rate variability were collected in Fuzhou West Lake Park with the help of Ergo LAB data platform, and a soundscape perception evaluation questionnaire was used to assess the degree of soundscape perceptions in the sample sites. The differences in the stress relieving effects of different urban park environments were analysed by applying the median test, the Wilcoxon test was applied to analyse the effects of soundscapes and urban park environments on relieving stress, and regression analysis was used to identify the important factors of restorative soundscapes. The results found that urban park environments provide a certain degree of stress relief, but the stress relieving effects of different urban park environments vary and that natural spaces play an important role in relieving stress. Urban park soundscapes are key to restorative environmental design, with natural sounds such as birdsong and stream sound being important factors of restorative soundscapes.

Associations between indoor soundscapes, building services and window opening behaviour during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Results of an online survey conducted during the COVID-19 lockdown among 848 home workers living in London (United Kingdom) and in Italy are reported with a focus on (1) the impacts of building services on the perception of the acoustic environment while working and relaxing at home and (2) the factors associated with window opening behaviour. The analyses showed no significant difference in soundscape appropriateness for relaxation depending on the heating, ventilation and cooling system typologies, and in soundscape appropriateness for working from home (WFH) based on the ventilation strategy. Higher soundscape appropriateness for WFH was associated with houses equipped only with radiant floors for heating in Italy and with air-cooling systems in London. In London, air systems resulted in higher perceived dominance of noise from building services compared to other systems. Overall, rooms with less dominant sounds from building services were evaluated as more appropriate for working and relaxing. The dominance of sky or buildings from the window view, outdoor noisiness, noise sensitivity, age and gender were not significantly associated with participants' window opening behaviour while WFH. Differently, participants viewing more vegetation from windows in Italy were more likely (odds ratio: 1.279) to keep the window open while WFH.

Associations between Personal Attitudes towards COVID-19 and Public Space Soundscape Assessment: An Example from Antwerp, Belgium.

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the lockdown events and policies that followed, led to significant changes in the built environment and how it is experienced by people and communities. Among those, variations in the acoustic environments were some of the most noticeable in cities. This study investigated the relationships between the perception of the acoustic environment (i.e., soundscape) and different personal factors such as attitudes towards the pandemic and noise sensitivity, by performing a survey with 109 participants in an urban green public space in Antwerp (Belgium), shortly after most restrictions issued by the government were lifted in September 2020 when the first contamination wave ended. While preliminary in nature, the results of this data collection campaign show that people actively changing their behaviors (using less public transport or cycling more) assessed the soundscapes as less vibrant/exciting. People who were more concerned about the pandemic tended to notice more natural sounds and noise from traffic on nearby local roads. This same subset also put a bigger importance on the environmental quality of the public space than in the pre-pandemic period. Noise sensitivity also played a role, as an association was found between more-than-average noise sensitive persons and those more worried regarding the pandemic. Overall, the findings of this study confirm that at least part of the people have started to perceive the public space, including its soundscape, differently since the start of the pandemic.

Perceptions of Change in the Natural Environment produced by the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic across Three European countries. Results from the GreenCOVID study.

Although different studies have evaluated the positive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures on reducing noise pollution and traffic levels and improving air quality, how populations have perceived such changes in the natural environment has not been adequately evaluated. The present study provides a more in-depth exploration of human population perception of enhanced natural exposure (to animal life and nature sounds) and reduced harmful exposure (by improved air quality and reduced traffic volume) as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. The data is drawn from 3,109 unselected adults who participated in the GreenCOVID survey from April to July 2020 in England, Ireland, and Spain. The findings suggest that the positive impacts to the natural environment as a result of the lockdown have been better received by the population in Spain and Ireland, in comparison to England. Participants who resided in urban areas had better perceived improvements in nature sounds, air quality, and traffic volume compared to those in rural areas. Older populations and those with lower smoking and alcohol consumption were found to perceive this improvement the most. Furthermore, the greater perception of improvements in environmental elements was also associated with better self-perceived health and improved wellbeing. In the binary logistic regression, living in Ireland or Spain, urban areas, female gender, older age, and good overall wellbeing were associated with a greater perception of improvements in the natural environment, while the factors most associated with a greater perception of reduced harmful exposure were living in Spain, had a good self-perceived health status and older age.