Human Dimension of the Soundscape: From Individuals to Society - Soundscape Ecology: Principles, Patterns, Methods and Applications - page 123

Acoustics, physics, psychology, medicine, ecology, bioacoustics, and sociology
are all disciplines that have common roots in the soundscape. The future challenge
is to create a procedure that incorporate the different aspects of soundscape, human
societies, and the environment.

5.9 The Characters of the Urban Soundscape

The soundscape in an urban space is really a complex system that has relationships
with physical, psychological, and social factors. The urban soundscape represents a
complex system in which environmental factors are shared with psychological,
social, and cultural attributes of the living societies. Physical noise has been for
long time an important component of the quality of the urban spaces, but a
reduction of the noise does not automatically create better comfort, as recently
argued by Kang and Zhang ( 2010 ).
Studying the urban soundscape means to investigate at least in two distinct
directions: (1) assuming an holist hearing without semantics, where the background
noise is evaluated in terms of annoyance without distinguishing the composing
events; and (2) distinguishing the different sources of sound/noise and their rating
according to a detailed categorization after a recognition of meaningful sounds.
Using the semantic differential analysis first introduced by Osgood et al. ( 1957 )
to identify the emotional meaning of the words, Kang and Zhang ( 2010 ) have
evaluated the different sounds in open urban public spaces in which an important
role is assumed by acoustic comfort and noise (Table 5.3 ). In the design used to
evaluate the soundscape quality (students) respondents have demonstrated a clear
preferences for natural sounds and green spaces, confirming that the sonic ambient
is of primary importance between the different environmental conditions.
Sources of urban noise seems a controversial issue for the variety of urban
sounds and for the generation of new sounds according to technological

improvement.
Leobon proposed in 1995 a theoretical classification reported in Table 5.4 where
sounds were classified as “unpleasant,” “pleasant,” and “unusual.”
The noise in urban areas is produced not only by transport but also by all types of
human activity and by nature too.
The total noise ( L cn ) of an urbanized area is the result of superimposition of the
acoustic background ( L bn ) (all sounds produced by human activity, excluding
transport noise) and the noise generated by transport ( L tn ). For more details see
Lebiedowska ( 2005 ).