**1. Introduction**

Noise is defined as any disturbing or unwanted sound that influences or deteriorates human or wildlife [1]. Although noise constantly surrounds us, noise pollution generally receives less attention than other environmental pollutants (e.g., water pollution, soil pollution, air pollution, etc.) [2]. This can be explained with the fact that noise exposure has an accumulating character which means that the negative impact of noise can be detected after a long period of time. Long exposure to noise pollution can cause bad mood, fatigue, insomnia, headache, loss of concentration, reduced work ability and finally the worst possible case-scenario permanent hearing impairment [3–5]. In addition, recent research studies unfortunately show that environmental noise has an impact on several cardiovascular (e.g., increased blood pressure) and metabolic effects, cognitive impairment among children, annoyance, stress-related mental health risks and tinnitus [6–8].

When discussing noise in general, one also needs to keep in mind that a certain sound perceived as desired or wanted by one person can be perceived as noise for someone else. This can be a devious task when analysing noise and implementing solutions for noise reduction.

Human ear can hear a relatively large ratio of the effective maximum and minimum values of the sound pressure which are expressed then in decibels (dB). Sound level is expressed in decibels in relation to the reference sound pressure level (Pa) which corresponds to the threshold of audibility of the average person at 1 kHz (**Figure 1**) [9].

In addition, noise can be described with noise perception parameters such as loudness (son), sharpness (acum), roughness (asper), fluctuation strength (vacil) and psychoacoustic annoyance (son) [10].

When dealing with the management of noise pollution, i.e., reduction of noise pollution, it has been proven that an interdisciplinary approach is required. From acoustical point of view, a traditional approach to reduction of noise pollution is noise barriers, while a more modern and propulsive approach is the soundscape concept.

Noise barrier is a sound "obstacle" between the sound source and the observer. Noise barrier efficiency depends principally on their design, i.e., favourable noise barriers have a diffuse element on the top (e.g., circular, Y- or T-shaped). Most important parameters which are used to describe the noise barriers are insertion loss (IL), transmission losses (TL) and barrier absorption coefficient. Usually, noise barriers can be divided into several types: Ground-mounted noise barriers (made from natural earth materials), structure-mounted noise barriers and the combination of the first two [11].

