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Frontiers of Earth Science

ISSN 2095-0195

ISSN 2095-0209(Online)

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Front. Earth Sci.    2020, Vol. 14 Issue (3) : 512-521    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-020-0816-2
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Acoustics in urban parks: Does the structure of narrow urban parks matter in designing a calmer urban landscape?
Shahla TASHAKKOR, Atefeh CHAMANI(), Mozhgan Ahmadi NADOUSHAN, Minoo MOSHTAGHIE
Environmental Sciences Department, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan 81595-158, Iran
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Abstract

Urban parks can function as a proper sink of noise pollution. However, lack of universally-agreed upon methodologies and differing urban conditions have fueled controversy surrounding the effectuation of this urban park function around the world. Hence, to address this controversy in narrow urban parks (with a mean width of ~109 m) in Isfahan City, Central Iran, noise levels (Lq30) were measured along two longitudinal transects placed along the interior northern river-and adjacent to the southern edge of the parks bordered by a heavily-conjected road. We used statistical tests and models to determine the association of noise levels measured along the northern transect with the distance to, and the intensity of noise emitted from, the road, vegetation biomass, and vegetation height within two 50 and 100 m buffer rings drawn around northern sites and the richness of bird species. The average Lq30 values differed significantly between the southern (~73.21 dB) and northern (~66.43 dB) transects and correlated negatively with species richness (r(98) = −0.324, p<0.01). Three variables including mean NDVIwithin the 100 m buffer ring, distance from the road and mean Lq30 values of the nearest three southern sites were included to build the best predictive multiple-linear regression model through the step-wise procedure with r2 of 0.52. These findings suggest that further attempts aiming to alleviate the parks’ interior noise level should be attentive to distance to road, traffic at the nearest road part, and the interior vegetation characteristics.
Keywords noise pollution      multiple-linear regression      NDVI      vegetation height      Isfahan     
Corresponding Author(s): Atefeh CHAMANI   
Online First Date: 11 September 2020    Issue Date: 04 December 2020
 Cite this article:   
Shahla TASHAKKOR,Atefeh CHAMANI,Mozhgan Ahmadi NADOUSHAN, et al. Acoustics in urban parks: Does the structure of narrow urban parks matter in designing a calmer urban landscape?[J]. Front. Earth Sci., 2020, 14(3): 512-521.
 URL:  
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fesci/EN/10.1007/s11707-020-0816-2
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fesci/EN/Y2020/V14/I3/512
Fig.1  Geographical location of Isfahan Province and case study parks.
Fig.2  Distribution of noise measurement sites.
Variables Descriptive statistics Correlation with
Ni-Leq30		 Normality (2-tailed)
No. Min Max Mean Std. Test Sig.
N-Leq30 50 62.4 69.7 66.43 1.73 0.098 0.19 1
S-Leq30 50 70.19 77.09 73.21 1.60 0.39 1 0.070 0.20 1
3S-Leq30 50 71.59 76.20 73.37 1.18 0.45 1 0.102 0.20 1
Distance 50 65.96 169.09 109.24 22.83 -0.42 1 0.123 0.55 1
H-50 50 0.10 7.09 3.43 0.74 -0.25 1 0.123 0.56 1
H-100 50 0.40 7.29 3.52 0.71 -0.43 1 0.106 0.20 1
NDVI-50 50 0.13 0.42 0.26 0.06 -0.311 0.104 0.19 1
NDVI-100 50 0.14 0.39 0.29 0.51 -0.541 0.103 0.20 1
Tab.1  Descriptive statistics of dependent and independent variables and results of normality test
Species name Southern transect Northern transect Species name Southern transect Northern transect
# of sites the species was seen Total # of individuals # of sites the species was seen Total # of individuals # of sites the species was seen Total # of individuals # of sites the species was seen Total # of individuals
Corvus corone 44 235 44 218 Sylvia communis 0 0 1 1
Corvus frugilegus 19 52 14 31 Sylvia atricapilla 0 0 1 1
Passer domesticus 46 475 50 558 Sylvia nisoria 0 0 1 1
Motacilla alba 13 20 17 20 C. coccothraustes 0 0 1 1
Pica pica 24 73 27 63 Caruelis chloris 0 0 1 1
Spilopelia senegalensis 24 48 17 30 Luscinia megarhynchos 0 0 2 3
Hyppolais languida 0 0 2 2 Pycnonotus leucotis 0 0 2 2
Phlloscopus collybita 10 15 5 8 Phoenicurus phoenicurus 0 0 2 2
A. arundinaceus 1 1 0 0 Turdus philomelos 0 0 1 1
Acridotheres tristis 2 4 3 4 Turdus ruficollis 0 0 1 2
Sturnus rulgaris 18 39 27 58 Streptopelia dacaocto 1 2 1 2
Fringilla coelbs 0 0 3 8 Motacilla flava 0 0 1 1
Dendrocopos syricus 5 6 8 8 Accipiter nisus 1 1 0 0
Parus major 3 4 3 6 Lanius collurio 0 0 1 1
Columba livia 7 17 3 5 Upupa epops 1 1 5 8
Motacilla cinerea 0 0 1 1 Oriolus oriolus 1 1 3 3
columba palumbus 4 5 11 22 Psittacula krameri 0 0 2 4
lanius isabellinus 0 0 1 1 Falco tinnunculus 0 0 1 1
Passer montanus 0 0 1 2 Remiz pendulinus 0 0 1 0
Muscicapa striata 0 0 1 1 Erithacus rubecula 0 0 1 1
Apus apus 23 86 36 167 Troglodytes troglodytes 0 0 1 1
Hippolais pallida 7 13 6 11 Merops apiaster 0 0 1 1
Tab.2  Name of species observed, number of sites in which the species was observed (richness column) and the total number of individuals (observation column)
Fig.3  Distribution of vegetation height (left) and NDVI (right) as well as 50 and 100-m buffer rings placed around northern sites; note that 50-m buffer rings were only shown in the NDVI layouts and 100-m buffer rings were shown in the vegetation height layouts for better representation of objects.
Variable Coeff. Statistics Shapiro-Wilk
Dependent Independent S.E. R2 F Sig. t Sig. VIF Stat. Sig.
N-Leq30 Constant ???67.80 16.5 0.52 16.3 0.00 ??4.73 0.00 0.40 0.09
NDVI-100 −182.7 44.3 −4.10 0.00 1.09
3S-Leq30 ????0.60 0.16 ??3.67 0.01 1.02
Distance ?−0.18 0.08 −2.31 0.02 1.01
Tab.3  Parameters of the best performing stepwise MLR model (For abbreviations see the legend of Table 1)
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