**3.1 Soundscape definition**

A particular soundscape includes all the sounds from a certain acoustic environment received by the human ear. The first idea of soundscape was introduced by Schafer, in his book *The New Soundscape* [17]. His primary idea was to record a soundscape of the world in a form of a map similar to geographical maps. However, extremely rapid changes in the soundscapes have made this idea impossible to implement. Soundscapes, among other things, change rapidly due to the growth of the human population, people's migration and traffic increase. On the other hand, it is possible and of great interest to record current soundscapes.

The soundscape of a certain environment consists of various sound groups and sound sources. They can be divided into three major groups, biophony, geophony and anthrophony [17], which is shown in **Figure 8**.

Biophony are all the sounds produced by living organisms in their natural habitat (**Table 2**). It is by far the most complex feature of soundscape because it combines all biological sound sources, from microscopic to large fauna that live in a given environment for a certain period of time. In environments that are rich with different voices of living beings, organisms produce acoustic signals in different spatial relationships which can sound as one or more sound signals. Geophony are all-natural sounds coming from non-biological sources in a certain environment (**Table 2**). Generally, they can be divided into four types: the sound effects of wind, water, climate and geophysical forces. Anthrophony are all sounds generated by humans in any natural environment. This group includes sounds coming from people, music and traffic noise.

Bearing in mind all of the aforementioned, it can be concluded that the concept of soundscape as a field of research is extremely broad and requires a multidisciplinary approach. In studies and researches, apart from acoustic engineers, psychologists, physicians, builders, architects and sociologists should be involved.

**Table 2** shows sound sources or acoustic components and direct acoustic effects of non-anthropogenic sound elements (biophony and geophony).

#### **Figure 8.** *Soundscape composition.*


#### **Table 2.**

*Characteristics of non-anthropogenic sound elements (based on [17])*
