Preface

This book raises awareness about noise pollution and its negative impact on the overall quality of life, especially in urban areas. Noise pollution, when compared to other environmental pollutions, is often neglected. A possible reason for this lies in its accumulating character, that is, the negative consequences of noise exposure only appear after long-term exposure.

Each chapter in this book draws attention to a specific concern, analyzing it and offering possible solutions.

Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to noise pollution, its negative impact, and two possible approaches to dealing with it: noise barriers and the soundscape concept. It critically analyzes each of these options and presents both pros and cons.

Chapter 2 deals with the challenges of environmental noise policies and governance, noise emissions, noise transmission modeling, and health and economic risk assessment in developing countries (e.g., Asia, Africa, and Latin America). Although appropriate legislation and laws are developed and provided, their enforcement is rarely implemented. Therefore, the chapter provides guidelines for a strategic framework to overcome these challenges and enable countries to attain sustainable environmental noise management.

Chapter 3 summarizes the methodological aspects of monitoring industrial and transport noise, including the main physical characteristics, features of sources, measuring instruments, features of hygienic regulation of industrial and transport noise, and means and methods of protection against it.

Chapter 4 presents a case study evaluating the acoustic performance of a tree barrier. Green noise barriers are becoming a propulsive acoustic instrument for noise reduction. Today, they must satisfy both aesthetic and noise reduction requirements. In addition to noise reduction, it has been proven that green barriers increase the quality of air in urban areas.

Chapter 5 studies infrasonic (≤ 20 Hz) noise exposure in a residential area in the vicinity of wind power plants. Infrasound by its definition should be inaudible to humans, however, studies have shown that the highest peaks of the wind turbine acoustic signature (up to 25 dB over background noise at 0.5–5 Hz) appears to trigger severe biological reactions. Therefore, the chapter suggests a new methodology.

We hope that this book will give readers new insight into the problems of noise pollution today as well as provide new ideas for possible methods to reduce noise levels and therefore improve the overall quality of life, especially for those residing in cities and urban areas.

> **Mia Suhanek** Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
