The effect of outdoor vegetation as seen from the dwelling’s window on self-reported noise annoyance
Invited paper
Ghent University
Wednesday 3 june, 2015, 11:20 - 11:40
0.6 Madrid (49)
Abstract:
The effect of outdoor vegetation as seen from the window of the living room on the self-reported noise annoyance was studied. Face-to-face surveys were taken at 106 participants at their homes (in the city of Ghent, Belgium). The living room, facing the road, was in all cases directly and highly exposed to road traffic noise (Lden levels between 65 and 75 dBA as taken from the END’s city noise map). Although noise levels at the most exposed facade were high, the percentage of dwellers in this survey that were at least moderately annoyed by noise was rather low (19 %). This can be partly explained by deliberately selecting dwellings with a pronounced quiet side to rule out this effect. Visual outside vegetation was shown to have a strong effect on the remaining self-reported noise annoyance; the chance of being at least moderately annoyed by noise when a green view is absent is about 5 times as high compared to having a pronounced green view (statistically significant at the 1% level). The self-reported noise annoyance was shown to be independent of the (approximately) measured facade insulation at each survey point.