The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on community noise

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused considerable changes in our lives. It has influenced our society, education, economy, and environment as well as our lifestyle. We have got used to wearing face masks daily. Working or studying from home is not an unusual thing anymore. On the other hand, some that we used to regard as normal, such as travelling abroad, have become less normal in this era. These changes subsequently influenced the acoustic environment in our community. Countries have closed their borders, set travel restrictions, and ordered their residents to stay home. Due to the reduced number of travelling, recent studies have noticed changes in traffic noise exposure. In addition, people gather less (e.g. at pubs or social events) during the pandemic, which also has an impact on the acoustic environment in our community. This paper provides a review of the literature on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on community noise. Based on the review, this paper concludes with suggestions for future research directions to create a better acoustic environment in the post-COVID era. © 2022 Internoise 2022 - 51st International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering. All rights reserved.

Simulating Changes in Aircraft Noise at Heathrow Airport during the 2020 Covid-19 Lockdown

Global restrictions on domestic and international travel introduced in March 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in a significant reduction in air traffic movements around the world. This paper presents the findings of research carried out at London Heathrow Airport exploring the day-by-day changes in aircraft noise exposure and event levels over the period March 2020 to June 2020. The research was carried out using validated modelling of aircraft procedures and noise profiles alongside radar data obtained from the airport. This allowed trends in metrics such as LAeq, N65, and overflight to be considered in the form of contours, and at community locations. This was facilitated using geospatial databases and interactive dynamic reporting toolkits. The research has allowed estimates to be made of the point where aircraft noise at Heathrow Airport reached a minimum. It also provides some helpful insight as to the potential of generating daily noise exposure data and the advantages, and disadvantages of modelling using radar data. © 2022 Internoise 2022 - 51st International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering. All rights reserved.

Cardiovascular consequences of aircraft noise exposure.

The results from epidemiological studies suggest that environmental noise including aircraft, railway, road traffic, wind turbine, and leisure-related noise is a growing public health concern. According to the WHO, at least 100 million people in the European Union are affected by traffic noise levels above the WHO-recommended thresholds. Environmental noise can adversely affect physical and mental health, as well as wellbeing. Chronic low-level noise exposure typical for most environmental sources is associated with psychophysiological stress causing non-auditory or indirect noise effects leading ultimately to cardiovascular diseases. Among all environmental noise sources, aircraft noise is considered the most annoying, and its leading mechanism of action is autonomic system activation such as increases in heart rate and blood pressure. Previously, we observed that long-term exposure to aircraft noise was associated with increased diastolic blood pressure, arterial stiffness (as assessed by pulse wave velocity), and impaired left ventricular diastolic function. All mentioned above effects are early, subclinical, and potentially reversible changes which preceded late noise effects in the cardiovascular system, that is, established cardiovascular diseases such as myocardial infarction, stroke, and heart failure. However, even a short-term reduction in aircraft noise exposure as observed during the COVID-19 lockdown may reverse these negative effects on arterial stiffness and blood pressure and may decrease the prevalence of insomnia. In this review, we aimed to critically discuss our obtained results considering recent studies on the influence of aircraft noise (and other traffic noises) on cardiovascular diseases in the context of the WHO Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region.

Co-exposure to urban particulate matter and aircraft noise adversely impacts the cerebro-pulmonary-cardiovascular axis in mice.

Worldwide, up to 8.8 million excess deaths/year have been attributed to air pollution, mainly due to the exposure to fine particulate matter (PM). Traffic-related noise is an additional contributor to global mortality and morbidity. Both health risk factors substantially contribute to cardiovascular, metabolic and neuropsychiatric sequelae. Studies on the combined exposure are rare and urgently needed because of frequent co-occurrence of both risk factors in urban and industrial settings. To study the synergistic effects of PM and noise, we used an exposure system equipped with aerosol generator and loud-speakers, where C57BL/6 mice were acutely exposed for 3d to either ambient PM (NIST particles) and/or noise (aircraft landing and take-off events). The combination of both stressors caused endothelial dysfunction, increased blood pressure, oxidative stress and inflammation. An additive impairment of endothelial function was observed in isolated aortic rings and even more pronounced in cerebral and retinal arterioles. The increase in oxidative stress and inflammation markers together with RNA sequencing data indicate that noise particularly affects the brain and PM the lungs. The combination of both stressors has additive adverse effects on the cardiovascular system that are based on PM-induced systemic inflammation and noise-triggered stress hormone signaling. We demonstrate an additive upregulation of ACE-2 in the lung, suggesting that there may be an increased vulnerability to COVID-19 infection. The data warrant further mechanistic studies to characterize the propagation of primary target tissue damage (lung, brain) to remote organs such as aorta and heart by combined noise and PM exposure.

Airborne Sound Power Levels and Spectra of Noise Sources in Port Areas.

Airborne port noise has historically suffered from a lack of regulatory assessment compared to other transport infrastructures. This has led to several complaints from citizens living in the urban areas surrounding ports, which is a very common situation, especially in countries facing the Mediterranean sea. Only in relatively recent years has an effort been made to improve this situation, which has resulted in a call for and financing of numerous international cooperation research projects, within the framework of programs such as EU FP7, H2020, ENPI-CBC MED, LIFE, and INTERREG. These projects dealt with issues and aspects of port noise, which is an intrinsically tangled problem, since several authorities and companies operate within the borders of ports, and several different noise sources are present at the same time. In addition, ship classification societies have recently recognized the problem and nowadays are developing procedures and voluntary notations to assess the airborne noise emission from marine vessels. The present work summarizes the recent results of research regarding port noise sources in order to provide a comprehensive database of sources that can be easily used, for example, as an input to the noise mapping phase, and can subsequently prevent citizens' exposure to noise.

Airborne Acoustic Transmission and Terrain Topography at SAINTGITS Amphitheatre: An Analysis of Outdoor Auditory Perception and Comparison of Contour Plots

The arrangement of natural and physical features on the earth's surface are a few among the countless items that govern the airborne acoustic transmission at boundary layers. In particular, if the acoustic waves are attributes of live concerts at open-air theatres, without losing the sheen and quality, the audience should certainly receive the unbroken depth of the performance. Hence, at all times, it is advisable to analyse the auditory receptiveness, particularly in all intended recreational spaces. The current pandemic circumstances and the mandated COVID-19 prevention protocols encourage gatherings in naturally ventilated outdoor regions than confined indoors. This work predicts and quantifies the acoustic experience at the naturally carved amphitheatre at SAINTGITS, an autonomous institution at the down South-West of the Indian Subcontinent. The entire recreational space at SAINTGITS AMPHI was separately modelled as a Base case and Advanced case, and were analysed using the acoustic modelling module of EASE Focus, a renowned simulation freeware, which is in strict adherence with the International standards. The variation in loudness received at the nearest and farthest ends of the amphitheatre was between 67 to 80 dB. Though the Zero frequency SPL (Z-weighting) exhibited the loudness in the range of 81 to 85 dB and could maintain a safer auditory level for any human ear, it was confined to a hemispherical region near the sound source. A vertical beam angle of -4.0 degrees was found to be effective throughout. The procedures and analyses will certainly help the future organizers and stakeholders to effectively plan the resources to reap rich acoustic experience at terrain-centric locales. The surface topography and contours were plotted with another set of freeware, the CADMAPPER and the QUIKGRID, to compare terrain gradient with the known data. Furthermore, this interdisciplinary research exhibits the extensive simulation capability of both EASE Focus and QUIKGRID and demonstrates the modelling versatility and deliverable potential of these freeware to benefit the budding architects and researchers.