Applications - Soundscape Ecology: Principles, Patterns, Methods and Applications - page 289

oriented in some direction. Thus, the auditory display can be used also when the
eyes are used in another task; for this reason sound can be used to inform busy
people for instance engaged in manual performances.
In the use of auditory display, the phase of training appears important; this is the
case of blind people but also of sonar operators who must be trained to distinguish
the different sound attributes produced by morphology, banks of fish, ships, and
submarines.
Summary
Acoustic communication is the most powerful semiotic process with which
organisms exchange information. Every phenomenon that reduces the acoustic
communication can have severe consequences on the survivorship of many vocal
species.
Sonic intrusion appears a growing threat to the maintenance of an high level of
biological and ecological complexity. In particular noise of anthropogenic origin
masks or degrades the acoustic signals between individuals and species. Urban
noise, marine noise, habitat loss and isolation, land use transformation, chemical
pollution, hunting activity, and tourism intrusion in remote areas are some of the
principal menaces to the communication processes that connect individuals and
groups sharing information on resources, refuges, and reproduction.
Long-term monitoring of the sonic environment appears a new and promising
approach to understand the dynamic of natural and human-modified systems inside
and outside protected areas. Monitoring schemes become important tools to create
efficient guidelines to protect these areas on a long-term perspective.
Acoustics coupled with other data can produce a very efficient tool to try to
respond to questions pertaining the effect of global warming, the change of land
use, the effect of agriculture practice on natural systems or on pest spread.
Acoustic monitoring in marine ecosystems appears a new important methodol-
ogy able to grasp the changes in the marine sonic environment and the level of noise
intrusion. Long term-monitoring requires sonic observatories that represent a set of
instruments and procedures that allow the recording, the storing, and the processing
of a continuum flux of data scanned at different temporal scales according to the
different purposes.
Soundscape design means to consider the sonic environment not simply a
communication medium but also an important component of our environment
rich with important information.
The research of quiet areas across regions and countries represents an important
investigation, and their mapping allows exchange of information in different
environmental and socioeconomic databases.
Noise is a process that creates a growing concern for national parks and
protected areas managers. External nonrecreational noise intrusions, external rec-
reational noise intrusions, onsite interactivity noise intrusion, and onsite intra-
activity noise intrusions are the four main categories of noise sources that have
an impact on protected areas.