Abstract
Gardens have traditionally been retreats where silence could be sought and savored. This feature of traditional landscapes is being eroded by the spread of technology and the increase in human population.
The day will come when man will have to fight merciless noise as the worst enemy of his health.
—Robert Koch, 1880
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Notes
- 1.
Eric Rosenberg and Ilene J. Busch-Vishniac, “Continued Investigation of Noise Reduction by a Random-Edge Noise Barrier,” paper presented at the 133rd Acoustical Society of America Meeting, State College PA, 17 Jun 1997.
- 2.
Associated Press, “Population Boom Makes for a Noisy Planet,” Santa Fe New Mexi-can, 27 Jun 1999, A-1, A-3. Ironically, the next item on the page with this article was a small ad headed “Hearing Loss? 24-hour recorded message.”
- 3.
Two documentary films have been made about sound and those who track it. Soundtracker, from Nick Sherman in 2010, follows George Hempton in the wild for a month. In Pursuit of Silence, a 2017 release by Patrick Shen, visually tours varied soundscapes. Both are available on DVD, with Shen’s also downloadable.
- 4.
Information on the description and measurement of noise is compiled from the following sources: Peter Yost, “Building Green, Quietly,” EBN, Jan 2001, 1; www.lsu.edu/deafness/HearingRange.html (hearing ranges for humans and other species); http://hypertextbook.com/; and http://encarta.msn.com/. There is some variation in the range-of-hearing estimates, and there are varying conventions on exactly what pitch a musical instrument is tuned to.
- 5.
Ron Chepesiuk, “Decibel Hell: The Effects of Living in a Noisy World,” Environmental Health Perspectives 113, no. 1 (Jan 2005): A34–A41, PMC1253729 (see the following paragraph for an explanation of PMC archive numbers). Chepesiuk quotes Les Blomberg of Noise Pollution Clearinghouse as noting that even ordinary cars today have far bigger speakers than those used in concerts by the Beatles! An excellent source of information on noise pollution is Environmental Health Perspectives, the peer-reviewed journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. This chapter relies on several EHP articles, cited as print publications plus an identifying “PMC number” for each article, as archived online by PubMed Central. These numbers take the format PMC9999999. To access the full text of archived EHP articles, enter www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ followed by the article’s PMC number and a slash (/). A list of issues is at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/253/; scroll to a year, and select a monthly issue. The main website for EHP is https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/; for the institute, www.niehs.nih.gov/.
- 6.
- 7.
A “panel” refers here to a noise barrier of a specific material and a specific thickness. In some cases, the shape or design of the panel also influences NRC and STC ratings, for example, if the sur-face is rough or if there are openings through the panel.
- 8.
Charles George Ramsey, Harold Reeve Sleeper, and John Ray Hoke Jr., Architectural Graphic Stand-ards, 9th ed. (New York: Wiley, 1994), 59, tables.
- 9.
Charles W. Harris and Nicholas T. Dines, Timesaver Standards for Landscape Architecture (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988), 660–65, tables.
- 10.
The January 2005 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives included several articles that inform this chapter (see note 5 above, on PMC numbers for online archive retrieval): Wolfgang Babisch, “Guest Editorial: Noise and Health,” Environmental Health Perspectives 113, no. 1 (Jan 2005): A14–A15, PMC1253720; Erin E. Dooley, “EHPnet: Noise Pollution Clearinghouse,” Environmental Health Perspectives 113, no. 1 (Jan 2005): A27, PMC1253724; Ron Chepesiuk, “Decibel Hell: The Effects of Living in a Noisy World,” Environmental Health Perspectives 113, no. 1 (Jan 2005): A34–A41, PMC1253729; Charles W. Schmidt, “Noise That Annoys: Regulating Unwanted Sound,” Environmental Health Perspectives 113, no. 1 (Jan 2005): A42–A44, PMC1253730; John Manuel, “Clamoring for Quiet: New Ways to Mitigate Noise,” Environmental Health Perspectives 113, no. 1 (Jan 2005): A46–A49, PMC1253731.
- 11.
A discussion of the loss of the EPA noise program is at http://airportnoiselaw.org/epaonac3.html. The Airport Noise Law site, though awkwardly organized and incompletely indexed, still offers a wealth of information on noise legislation, activism, and other topics.
- 12.
Some research on the subject of bioacoustics, related to endangered birds and legislation to protect them from excessive noise, has been done at the Transportation Noise Control Center, a research institute at the University of California, Davis.
- 13.
For those interested in this topic, search the Web for LFAS (low-frequency active sonar).
- 14.
Paul A. Kaseloo and Katherine O. Tyson, Synthesis of Noise Effects on Wildlife Populations, report HEP-06-016 (Washington DC: Federal Highway Administration, 2004), www.fhwa.dot.gov/ENVIRONMENT/noise/effects/intro.htm. See also Yost, “Building Green, Quiet-ly.” In 2011, a seventy-one-page annotated bibliography of research on noise and wildlife was au-thored by members of the National Park Service’s Natural Sounds Program. Available by e-mail (not download); see www.nps.gov/subjects/sound/index.htm (a site useful for information about the National Park Service’s work on noise pollution and soundscapes).
- 15.
Ronald P. Larkin, “Human Noise and Wildlife,” 1995, Illinois Natural History Survey, http://wwx.inhs.illinois.edu/resources/inhsreports/jan-feb95/human/.
- 16.
Note that recording equipment and speakers are designed with human hearing in mind and in this sense may “filter” the original sounds. A recording might sound lifelike to humans and still be very different in the ranges perceived by animals.
- 17.
Yost, “Building Green, Quietly.” Remember that a ten-decibel reduction would indicate noise levels cut in half, and six decibels represents much more than 60 percent of that.
- 18.
Harris and Dines, Timesaver, 660–63, and FHWA online information (see www.fhwa.dot.gov/, and click to the “environment/noise” section). Weight per surface area can be increased either by using denser materials or by using a thicker wall, or both. Some older sources indicate that as little as 1.3 pounds per square foot is sufficient for sound barriers, but this appears to be inaccurate according to current publications. The FHWA indicates that a wall that blocks line of sight to the road (usually about six to eight feet tall) offers 5 dB reduction; that for each additional meter (or yard) in height, about 1.5 dB additional reduction can be achieved; and that the maximum feasible reduction is 10 dB. This strongly suggests that a twenty-foot-tall wall is the maximum useful height, because by the height criteria just noted, it will achieve 10 dB reduction.
- 19.
Harris and Dines, Timesaver, 660–63.
- 20.
Rosenberg and Busch-Vishniac, “Continued Investigation of Noise Reduction.”
- 21.
FHWA online information (see www.fhwa.dot.gov/ and click to “environment/noise” section). The FHWA considers parallel walls to degrade each other’s performance unless they are ten times as far apart as either wall’s height. Noise walls are typically at least twelve feet tall, which is the equivalent of one traffic lane.
- 22.
Some of the best research on this subject is by K. R. Fyfe of the University of Alberta, Canada. A. Muradali and K. R. Fyfe, “Accurate Barrier Modeling in the Presence of Atmospheric Ef-fects,” Applied Acoustics 56, no. 3 (Mar 1999): 157–82, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0003-682X(98)00023-1. Most design-engineering methods still ignore atmospheric decreases when estimating noise barrier effects. The FHWA’s approach acknowledges the effects, but merely recommends that measurements of noise not be made when the wind is blowing!
- 23.
Harris and Dines, Timesaver, 660–66.
- 24.
Yost, “Building Green, Quietly.”
- 25.
I have to boast: our second edition commented as follows about Acoustiblok: “Available in a number of fabric colors, it seems likely that creative printing techniques could be used to expand visual design possibilities.”
- 26.
US Patent 20030006090 A1, Broadband noise-suppressing barrier.
- 27.
Heather Hansman, “This Crazy Land Art Deflects Noise from Amsterdam’s Airport,” Smithsonian, 27 May 2015, www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/crazy-land-art-deflects-noise-from-amsterdams-airport-180955398/.
- 28.
S. Meiarashi, “Porous Elastic Road Surface as an Ultimate Highway Noise Measure,” the 22nd World Road Congress, Oct 2003. Download from the Public Works Research Institute, www.pwri.go.jp/team/zairyou/pers_final.pdf.
- 29.
Katie Valentine, “Netherlands Company Introduces Plastic Roads That Are More Durable, Climate Friendly Than Asphalt,” ThinkProgress.org, 22 Jul 2015, https://thinkprogress.org/netherlands-company-introduces-plastic-roads-that-are-more-durable-climate-friendly-than-asphalt-ecb7c2a11a50; Yara Salem, “From Plastic to Pavement: Another Example of Creative Waste Management,” Sustainable Cities (World Bank blog), 29 Sep 2014, http://blogs.worldbank.org/sustainablecities/plastic-pavement-another-example-creative-waste-management; Sagar Pokharel, “Utilization of Waste Plastics in Construction of Flexible Pavements (Re-use of Waste Plastics),” www.slideshare.net/sagar22account/utilization-of-plastics-in-flexible-pavement; Dykes Paving, “Texas Roads Made from Plastic,” www.dykespaving.com/blog/texas-roads-made-from-plastic.
- 30.
There is, however, a rare psychological gift called synesthesia in which people see specific colors simultaneously with hearing certain sounds. Does noise torment them like an allergy?
- 31.
Ramsey, Sleeper, and Hoke, Architectural Graphic Standards, 59, table.
- 32.
For an overview, see Won-Pyoung Kang, Hak-Ryong Moon, and You-Jin Lim, “Analysis on Technical Trends of Active Noise Cancellation for Reducing Road Traffic Noise,” Journal of Emerging Trends in Computing and Information Sciences 5, no. 4 (Apr 2014): 286–91.
- 33.
This information is from an excellent FAQ site about active noise control, http://chrisruckman.com/ancfaq.htm. It was last updated in 2007, so it is not completely current with emerging research, but it readably explains the concept and its history. It can be downloaded, if you want to read a font that looks like it’s from a dot-matrix printer; much easier to read on-screen. For book-length detail, fairly accessible to the layperson, see Colin H. Hansen, Understanding Active Noise Cancellation (Boca Raton FL: CRC Press, 2002).
- 34.
Reported by Noise Free America on its website, www.noisefree.org/, this distinction was the result of a na-tional poll.
- 35.
Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, “Leaf Blower Facts,” http://opei.org/leaf-blower-facts/.
- 36.
This statistic is from the website of IAC Acoustics, www.industrialacoustics.com/.
- 37.
The Bush administration, predictably, pushed to rescind the ban.
- 38.
Associated Press, “Park Service Officials Want to Get a Word In: ‘Quiet,’” Santa Fe New Mexican, 3 Jul 1999, A-1, A-2.
- 39.
Information from Noise Free America’s home page, www.noisefree.org/.
- 40.
John Fecht, “New York Mayor in Fight Against Noise Pollution,” City Mayors, 10 Jun 2004.
- 41.
Quoted in Phillip Langdon, “Noisy Highways,” Atlantic Monthly, Aug 1997. Full text online at www.theatlantic.com/issues/97aug/langdon.htm.
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© 2018 Kim Sorvig and J. William Thompson
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Sorvig, K., Thompson, J.W. (2018). Quietly Defend Silence. In: Sustainable Landscape Construction. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-811-4_10
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