Preserving natural quiet areas and urban parks

Nowadays the protection of natural quiet areas and parks inside cities is an issue of increasing importance, as also recognized in the European Directive 2002/49/EC, because in these places people can temporarily recover their health. In order to preserve these areas it is fundamental to characterize properly their soundscape, taking into account the several non-acoustic factors influencing the individual perception, such as the subject's expectation of the environment and the sounds expected to be heard there. This paper describes the surveys carried out in urban parks in Naples and Milan, aimed at investigating their soundscape and the subjective evaluation on different aspects of the parks, including non-acoustic ones. The results show that mean overall L Aeq levels are in the range 52÷62 dB(A). In all the parks, silence was ranked last as the most important factor for the pleasantness of the park. Voices and dogs barking are the sounds most expected to be heard in the park, whilst road traffic and aircraft fly-overs are the most annoying. The perceived quality of the soundscape was largely below the current threshold used to define quiet areas, whereas the perceived overall quality of the parks was rather satistactory.