13:30 pm
3805 - Consciousness of Individual Noise Pollution Behavior of the German Population
Jördis Wothge | German Environment Agency | Switzerland
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Jördis Wothge | German Environment Agency | Switzerland
The German study of environmental consciousness is a representative biannual survey of the German Environment Agency. It investigates the attitudes, beliefs and behavior of the German population with regard to various environmental issues. Noise is an integral part of this study. Until 2014, noise was only included with respect to annoyance by traffic noise, industrial noise and neighborhood noise. The latest version of the survey also introduced a section on the populations’ consciousness of their own noise polluting behavior (‘noise consciousness’). A 10-item questionnaire was implemented to investigate the factual knowledge of the German population about health impacts of environmental noise, as well as attitudes, awareness and behavior towards and about the individual noise emission. This contribution introduces and describes the methods of the survey and presents and discusses first results of the section on ‘noise consciousness’ in the current study about the environmental consciousness of the German population by the German Environment Agency.
13:45 pm
3838 - The influence of audio-visual aptitude on audio-visual interaction in appraisal of the environment
Dick Botteldooren, Prof. Dr. | Ghent University | Belgium
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Authors:
Dick Botteldooren, Prof. Dr. | Ghent University | Belgium
Kang Sun | Belgium
Gemma Maria Echevarria Sanchez | Switzerland
Bert De Coensel, Prof. Dr. | Belgium
Timothy Van Renterghem, Prof. Dr. | Belgium
Perception and appraisal of the living environment are multi-sensory processes. People are able only to some extent to isolate one particular sensory input and appraise it separately. Hence, in a more holistic soundscape design, combined stimuli should be included. Of particular interest for appraising the sonic environment, is the role of attention. Attention and gating partly determine whether sound interferes with or promotes instantaneous activities that the listener is engaged in.
As it has become clear that a considerable part of the brain governing auditory perception has a high plasticity, large differences can be expected between persons. Hence we redesigned a classical experiment for an ecologically valid setting to assess one of these personal factors: audio-visual aptitude. Both the ability of a person to distinguish small changes in the sonic environment and its resilience to visual distraction are assessed by the test. Using a noise annoyance experiment with visual context in a mock-up living room, it could be shown that there is an effect of being easily visually distracted, in particular in combination with visibility of natural green elements.
14:00 pm
3898 - Good acoustic architecture for streetscapes
Ines Neuhaus | NEUHAUS Akustische Architektur KLG | Switzerland
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Ines Neuhaus | NEUHAUS Akustische Architektur KLG | Switzerland
Fabian Neuhaus | NEUHAUS Akustische Architektur KLG | Switzerland
In urban areas around the world, people and animals have to cope with noise, and living environments are becoming increasingly dense and scarce because of it. This is especially true in the neighbourhood of traffic routes. With all the advantages around-the-clock mobility and means of transport offer us, the noise they cause is currently one of the biggest problems in urban areas. To create attractive, popular places requires up-to-date solutions that in terms of acoustics lead well beyond what was achieved before and at the same time are in tune with broader urban design goals.
In a design guide developed for the Swiss Canton of Zurich, the authors present a new approach to building design along traffic routes that is both architecturally holistic and acoustically sustainable. It focuses on the way spaces completely or partially enclosed by buildings act as sound boxes and strongly define the acoustic situation. Presenting ready-to-use architectural design principles, the authors show a path to creating satisfying acoustic conditions for people in and around streets and other traffic routes.
14:15 pm
3926 - Effects of anthropogenic sound on terrestrial ecosystems: a review of recent evidence
Guillaume Dutilleux, Prof. Dr. | University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway | France
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Guillaume Dutilleux, Prof. Dr. | University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway | France
Since the beginning of the 1980s a large body of scientific and technical literature regarding the effects of anthropogenic noise on terrestrial wildlife has developed. These effects are mostly documented for birds and anurans. They range from behavioral modifications like signalling louder, increasing the signalling rate or redundancy, signalling at a higher pitch, signalling outside noisy periods, but also to alterations of intraspecific or interspecific interactions. Moreover it is now proven that man-made noise may lead to reduced reproductive success, reduced species richness or reduced density. This paper reviews the published literature on the topic since the beginning of the 2010s. The careful design of experiments helps avoid methodological biases some more ancient studies in this field may suffer from. The paper highlights the progress of knowledge among the different taxa including invertebrates and also on the effects of anthropogenic noise relating to the operation of an ecosystem.
14:30 pm
3585 - Ears II - Development of an ultrasound measurement technique for use in occupational safety
Christian Ullisch-Nelken | Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance (IFA) | Germany
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Authors:
Christian Ullisch-Nelken | Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance (IFA) | Germany
Robert Schöneweiß | Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt | Germany
Andrea Wolff, PhD | Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance (IFA) | Germany
During the past several years ultrasound has gained importance in the field of occupational safety, since the dissemination of ultrasound technology in industrial applications has increased.
While several studies on airborne ultrasound and its effects on human health exist, no major research has been carried out in this area approximately since the seventies of the last century . Thus, airborne ultrasound still poses a potential risk to employees and the general population alike. To address this problem, among others, the EU-project “Ears II” was initiated.
For occupational safety, measuring airborne ultrasound in-situ is vital. However, current measurement techniques apply to measuring audible sound only and do not cover ultrasound for several reasons. The ultrasound fields emitted by today’s industrial appliances are mostly unknown and likely to be complex. Additionally, no weighting for a comparable assessment of the exposure to ultrasonic noise is defined. We iteratively develop a measurement procedure by evaluating current laboratory and conventional in-situ techniques as well as existing data and by performing in-situ measurements.
We will present the current progress of the development and discuss possible caveats.