- Author
- Bert De Coensel (UGent)
- Promoter
- Dick Botteldooren (UGent)
- Organization
- Abstract
- Traditionally, noise abatement is focused on the annoying or harmful effects of sounds, and on minimizing these effects by reducing noise levels. However, it is increasingly aknowledged that, in order to achieve a good environmental quality, the positive as well as the negative aspects of sound have to be considered. The rather new, interdisciplinary field of soundscape research tries to bend this trend. An important feature of the soundscape is its temporal structure. Time patterns in the fluctuations of sound level or frequency are known to play an important role in the perception of sound. It is a key idea in this work that a good temporal structure contributes to a positive sound environment, and that the temporal aspect is indispensable in soundscape design. However, studies on its influence and efforts to integrate the temporal aspect into soundscape research have been rare. In this work, the emphasis is put on the most important source of noise in urban and rural environment: traffic. To introduce the temporal aspect into the study of soundscapes, one faces two challenges. Firstly, current noise prediction models were developed mainly for the prediction of time-averaged noise levels, and can not estimate the temporal structure easily. Therefore, a time-dependent noise prediction model is developed in this work. Secondly, it is not clear which indicators to use to describe the time variations, and what their relation is to human perception. Various indicators associated with fluctuating noise, each with its own positive aspects as well as shortcomings, have been proposed in the past. In this work, a novel indicator is proposed, based on the spectral density of fluctuations in loudness, which may be able to grasp the time structure of environmental sound in a more covering way. Finally, two fields of application of these concepts are studied in detail: the quality assessment of quiet areas, and the emergence of traffic noise annoyance in an at-home context.
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Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-471975
- MLA
- De Coensel, Bert. Introducing the Temporal Aspect in Environmental Soundscape Research. Ghent University. Faculty of Engineering, 2007.
- APA
- De Coensel, B. (2007). Introducing the temporal aspect in environmental soundscape research. Ghent University. Faculty of Engineering, Ghent, Belgium.
- Chicago author-date
- De Coensel, Bert. 2007. “Introducing the Temporal Aspect in Environmental Soundscape Research.” Ghent, Belgium: Ghent University. Faculty of Engineering.
- Chicago author-date (all authors)
- De Coensel, Bert. 2007. “Introducing the Temporal Aspect in Environmental Soundscape Research.” Ghent, Belgium: Ghent University. Faculty of Engineering.
- Vancouver
- 1.De Coensel B. Introducing the temporal aspect in environmental soundscape research. [Ghent, Belgium]: Ghent University. Faculty of Engineering; 2007.
- IEEE
- [1]B. De Coensel, “Introducing the temporal aspect in environmental soundscape research,” Ghent University. Faculty of Engineering, Ghent, Belgium, 2007.
@phdthesis{471975, abstract = {{Traditionally, noise abatement is focused on the annoying or harmful effects of sounds, and on minimizing these effects by reducing noise levels. However, it is increasingly aknowledged that, in order to achieve a good environmental quality, the positive as well as the negative aspects of sound have to be considered. The rather new, interdisciplinary field of soundscape research tries to bend this trend. An important feature of the soundscape is its temporal structure. Time patterns in the fluctuations of sound level or frequency are known to play an important role in the perception of sound. It is a key idea in this work that a good temporal structure contributes to a positive sound environment, and that the temporal aspect is indispensable in soundscape design. However, studies on its influence and efforts to integrate the temporal aspect into soundscape research have been rare. In this work, the emphasis is put on the most important source of noise in urban and rural environment: traffic. To introduce the temporal aspect into the study of soundscapes, one faces two challenges. Firstly, current noise prediction models were developed mainly for the prediction of time-averaged noise levels, and can not estimate the temporal structure easily. Therefore, a time-dependent noise prediction model is developed in this work. Secondly, it is not clear which indicators to use to describe the time variations, and what their relation is to human perception. Various indicators associated with fluctuating noise, each with its own positive aspects as well as shortcomings, have been proposed in the past. In this work, a novel indicator is proposed, based on the spectral density of fluctuations in loudness, which may be able to grasp the time structure of environmental sound in a more covering way. Finally, two fields of application of these concepts are studied in detail: the quality assessment of quiet areas, and the emergence of traffic noise annoyance in an at-home context.}}, author = {{De Coensel, Bert}}, isbn = {{9789085781332}}, language = {{eng}}, pages = {{XXV, 266}}, publisher = {{Ghent University. Faculty of Engineering}}, school = {{Ghent University}}, title = {{Introducing the temporal aspect in environmental soundscape research}}, url = {{http://lib.ugent.be/fulltxt/RUG01/001/190/571/RUG01-001190571_2010_0001_AC.pdf}}, year = {{2007}}, }