Soundscape and Landscape Ecology - Soundscape Ecology: Principles, Patterns, Methods and Applications - page 5

It is relevant to consider that the globalization we find in the economic domain
has been extended progressively to other domains such as the psychological
aspects, degrading some identitarian feelings. The soundscape could work to
reconcile the local to the global dimension of our perceptional Umwelt because it
maintains also, involuntarily, the “sense of place” in people.
Any landscape is characterized by a sonic environment, and a sonic environment
is composed of a plethora of messages from a transmitter to volunteer or
non-volunteer receivers. Often sonic ambience is associated with noise pollution,
and the sonic environment, when not appropriately identified, does not receive the
necessary attention. However, sounds such as bird songs or a waterfall create a
sense of well-being and relaxation in humans. The soundscape becomes a dimen-
sion in which the integration of acoustic and visual stimuli creates a new perceptive
dimension in which cognition represents a fundamental synthesis. The soundscape
can receive much attention from the field of nature conservation and therapeutic
evaluation, and collection of information on the soundscape represents a valuable
asset in the fields of nature conservation, behavioral sciences, and human social
processes.
1.4 A Brief History of Soundscape Ecology:
Origins and Perspectives
The soundscape ecology represents a new transdisciplinary field of research strictly
connected to landscape ecology that has recently been posed to the attention of
scholars and students (Pijanowski et al. 2011a ; Truax and Barrett 2011 ). We utilize
the term transdisciplinary with the same meaning used by Zev Naveh to describe
the role and function of landscape ecology at the beginning of its scientific
foundation Naveh and Lieberman ( 1984 ). The origin of soundscape ecology has
been the result of the intentions of small and isolated groups of landscape ecologists
who had recognized the necessity to investigate the patterns and processes created
by sounds at all levels of biological and ecological complexity.
Despite a long tradition in soundscape studies focused on the human dimension
(Schafer 1977 ), the idea of a “Soundscape Ecology” was presented for the first time
by Bryan Pijanowski and Almo Farina at the 24th annual meeting of US-IALE
Branch in Snow Bird, Utah (USA), April 2009, in a symposium titled “Soundscape
Ecology: Merging Bioacoustics and Landscapes.” The genuine interest in this new
topic has gained the interest of the scientific community with its presentation in the
journal BioScience (AIBS) (Pijanowski et al. 2011a ) and successively with seminal
contributions that were collected in a special issue of the journal Landscape
Ecology (Springer) (Pijanowski and Farina 2011 ). Soon, the soundscape ideas
attracted other scientific competencies in the applied field of acoustics (Davies
2013 ). Since that time, interest in soundscape ecology has grown very quickly,
actually chronicled by the organization of symposia and seminars on this topic. For