Acoustic Sensing and Monitoring in Urban and Natural Environments

Overview & Synopsis

Measurements of surrounding noise are essential to understand the harmful effects of anthropogenic origin in urban environments as the associated pollution may have deleterious consequences on human health. Moreover, monitoring the changes in soundscape in natural habitats due to human activity is of primary importance for the development of effective environmental policies aimed at restoring the natural equilibrium in affected areas. The main goal of this reprint is to present, in a compact fashion, recently developed advances in sensor technology and monitoring techniques devised by experts actively working in acoustic phenomena both in urban and natural environments. The contributions cover soundscape analysis, wildlife monitoring, the annoyance and perception of road traffic noise, vibrations and noise attenuation techniques, and the development of new and more specialized types of sound sensors for future applications.