Naslov
The “sound of silence” in Granada during the COVID-19 lockdown

Autori
Manzano, Jerónimo Vida ; Pastor, José Antonio Almagro ; Quesada, Rafael García ; Aletta, Francesco ; Oberman, Tin ; Mitchell, Andrew ; Kang, Jian

Izvornik
Noise mapping (2084-879X) 8 (2021), 1; 16-31

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u časopisima, članak, znanstveni

Ključne riječi
lockdown ; environmental noise ; soundscapes ; COVID-19 ; cultural heritage

Sažetak
Exceptional circumstances in the city of Granadadue to the COVID-19 lockdown have provided the oppor-tunity to characterise the impact of humans on its urbanacoustic climate. Traditional environmental noise man-agement and urban sound planning usually take into ac- count noise sources in the city, such as industrial activi-ties or road traffic noise, in model estimations, as well asin empirical research. But trying to isolate human impactby itself, human activity including social activity, walking, talking or just going around the city, has always been adifficult or even impossible task. The COVID-19 lockdownmeasures have provided the opportunity to study urbanclimate as never before, affected just by natural or ani-mal noise sources. Previous soundscape research at someiconic sites in the city of Granada carried out in 2019 beforethe lockdown and a special measuring campaign carriedout at the same locations during the lockdown in 2020 of-fered valuable information on sound levels and local char-acteristics in order to carry out this comparison. Resultsshow a great change in environmental noise levels that isinteresting not only because of its magnitude, but also forits implications, especially at those sites where social hu-man activity was an identifying characteristic. Natural oranimal sounds became surprisingly evident at some studysites, especially where road traffic noise dramatically de- creased, leading to significantly lower background noiselevels. Important spectral changes are observed before andduring the lockdown, suggesting a shift from anthropic toanimal sources in the acoustic environment.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Arhitektura i urbanizam, Interdisciplinarne tehničke znanosti

POVEZANOST RADA