Urban noise mapping: the case of the city of el-Mina, north Lebanon

Abstract

Noise has always been a major environmental stressor in urban areas. The ability to measure ambient noise levels and represent them on a map should provide a powerful tool for spatially identifying noise sources, its spread, its impact and make decisions relating to its control and management. As such, geographical information technologies become very useful tools in noise mitigation. The GIS Center at the University of Balamand has identified the city of El-Mina, North Lebanon, as a typical mixed-use urban environment in which noise sources are diverse. These range from road transport activities to small-scale industries to construction activities, in addition to road retail, social and recreational activities, etc. The Balamand team used noise sensors and global positioning systems in order to spatially construct the noise map of the city. A total of three hundred and fifty points were recorded, together with information relating to the causes and effects over the 3.5 km2 of the town and over different times of the day. Daily averages were taken and it was found that 68 % of localities experienced noise levels in excess of 70 dBA while the acceptable level should not exceed 55 dBA. Maps were drawn showing the spatial distributions of noise and classified by source. It was concluded that traffic was the main contributor to such type of pollution. The object of this paper is to report these measurements and discuss how the methodology may further be developed and extended to other sites.