The importance of changing urban scenery in the assessment of citizens’ soundscape perception. On the need for different time-related points of view

This original work was carried out with the collaboration of Granada City Council Local Agenda 21 Technical Office in the execution of the soundwalks. Authors are grateful to the participants in the soundwalks and appreciate their interesting discussion and feedback. Valuable comments and personal feedback from Antonella Radicchi and Francesco Aletta are highly appreciated.The city of Granada is experimenting a big urban transformation, attending national and international commitments on clean air, energy efficiency and savings linked to greenhouse gases reduction strategies and sustainable development action plans. This situation constitutes a good scenario for new noise control approaches that take into account the sound variable and citizens empowering in urban design, such as the soundscape assessment of urban territory. In this way, soundscape tools have been used in Granada as a complementary method for environmental noise characterisation where traditional noise control techniques are difficult to be carried out or give limited results. After 2016 strategic noise map and in the preparation of the new noise action plan, the city came across a great acoustic challenge in a new area located outskirts characterised by growing urbanisation, still under development, the greatest legal protection because of sensitive teaching and hospital buildings and the greatest noise exposure from nearby ring-way supporting heavy traffic flow. As quiet urban areas are not characterised by the absence of noise but for the presence of the right noise, this research intended to provide the local administration with results and proposals to transform this conflict area in a pleasant or quiet urban place. Main results came from important and significative differences in morning and evening characterisation, as great differences appear in soundscape assessment over the day and along the soundwalk path, indicating the importance of time and local issues to adequately characterised citizens perception to be considered by administration in the development of strategies and effective noise control actions

Urban Soundscape Assessment by Visually Impaired People: First Methodological Approach in Granada (Spain)

The University of Granada team received no external funding for this project. The UCL team was funded through the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant (no. 740696) on "Soundscape Indices" (SSID).Soundscape assessments by citizens are starting to emerge as a common practice, normally carried out in context by means of soundwalks along selected paths with volunteers. However, when such assessments are carried out, either in situ or in laboratory experiments, visually impaired citizens are not usually involved. To address this question, three soundwalks were carried out in 2020 in the city of Granada, in southern Spain, with the participation of visually impaired people. In this paper, we present the lessons learnt from this research with respect to the methodology issues that have to do with soundwalking and the surveying procedures when people with limited vison are participating, the assessment results, and a comparison with a soundscape evaluation carried out in 2019 without the collaboration of visually impaired people. The results of this preliminary campaign highlight that: (1) Adapting soundscape assessment protocols from standards for visually impaired people is a methodological challenge that requires research attention; (2) Some of the different patterns in the assessment of the soundscape pleasantness between visually impaired and nonvisually impaired participants emerged; (3) The perception of quietness may differ for visually impaired people when orientation and identification are factors that play a role in the acoustic environment evaluation.European Research Council (ERC) European Commission 74069

The Acoustics of the Palace of Charles V as a Cultural Heritage Concert Hall

This paper analyses the acoustic behaviour of the Palace of Charles V from a room acoustics perspective but also ponders the uniqueness of the space and its ability to engage and enhance the audience experience. The Palace of Charles V is a relevant part of the historical heritage of Granada. It has an architectural but also an acoustic uniqueness that deserves research. A measurement campaign was made to calculate parameters such as T30, IACC, C80 or Gm, and to explain the behaviour of the Palace. The BQI is quite high, but the late part of the impulse response (t > 80 ms) has strong unwanted reflections causing low clarity (C80) and listener envelopment (LEV). Nevertheless, the Palace is a successful concert venue with good feedback from musicians and the audience

Soundscape assessment : towards a validated translation of perceptual attributes in different languages

The recently published ISO/TS 12913-2:2018 standard aims to provide researchers and practitioners around the world with a reliable questionnaire for soundscape characterization. The ISO Technical Specifications report protocols and attributes grounded in the soundscape literature, but only includes an English version. The applicability and reliability of these attributes in non-English speaking regions remains an open question, as research investigating translations of soundscape attributes is limited. To address this gap, an international collaboration was initiated with soundscape researchers from all over the world. Translation into 15 different languages, obtained through focus groups and panels of experts in soundscape studies, are proposed. The main challenges and outcomes of this preliminary exercise are discussed. The long-term objective is to validate the proposed translations using standardized listening experiments in different languages and geographical regions as a way to promote a widespread use of the soundscape attributes, both in academia and practice, across locations, populations and languages

Contribución al estudio de la radiación difusa del cielo sobre superficies con cualquier orientación e inclinación

Univ. Granada, Departamento de Física Aplicada. Leída el 26-04-199

The sound of silence in Granada during the COVID-19 lockdown

Exceptional circumstances in the city of Granada due to the COVID-19 lockdown have provided the opportunity to characterise the impact of humans on its urban acoustic climate. Traditional environmental noise management and urban sound planning usually take into account noise sources in the city, such as industrial activities or road traffic noise, in model estimations, as well as in empirical research. But trying to isolate human impact by itself, human activity including social activity, walking, talking or just going around the city, has always been a difficult or even impossible task. The COVID-19 lockdown measures have provided the opportunity to study urban climate as never before, affected just by natural or animal noise sources. Previous soundscape research at some iconic sites in the city of Granada carried out in 2019 before the lockdown and a special measuring campaign carried out at the same locations during the lockdown in 2020 offered valuable information on sound levels and local characteristics in order to carry out this comparison. Results show a great change in environmental noise levels that is interesting not only because of its magnitude, but also for its implications, especially at those sites where social human activity was an identifying characteristic. Natural or animal sounds became surprisingly evident at some study sites, especially where road traffic noise dramatically decreased, leading to significantly lower background noise levels. Important spectral changes are observed before and during the lockdown, suggesting a shift from anthropic to animal sources in the acoustic environment.Scientific Instrumentation Centre of the University of GranadaUniversity College LondonEuropean Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant (no. 740696) on “Soundscape Indices” (SSID

Estimating solar ultraviolet irradiance (290-385 nm) by means of the spectral parametric models: SPCTRAL2 and SMARTS2

Since the discovery of the ozone depletion in Antarctic and the globally declining trend of stratospheric ozone concentration, public and scientific concern has been raised in the last decades. A very important consequence of this fact is the increased broadband and spectral UV radiation in the environment and the biological effects and heath risks that may take place in the near future. The absence of widespread measurements of this radiometric flux has lead to the development and use of alternative estimation procedures such as the parametric approaches. Parametric models compute the radiant energy using available atmospheric parameters. Some parametric models compute the global solar irradiance at surface level by addition of its direct beam and diffuse components. In the present work, we have developed a comparison between two cloudless sky parametrization schemes. Both methods provide an estimation of the solar spectral irradiance that can be integrated spectrally within the limits of interest. For this test we have used data recorded in a radiometric station located at Granada (37.180°N, 3.580°W, 660 m a.m.s.l.), an inland location. The database includes hourly values of the relevant variables covering the years 1994-95. The performance of the models has been tested in relation to their predictive capability of global solar irradiance in the UV range (290–385 nm). After our study, it appears that information concerning the aerosol radiative effects is fundamental in order to obtain a good estimation. The original version of SPCTRAL2 provides estimates of the experimental values with negligible mean bias deviation. This suggests not only the appropriateness of the model but also the convenience of the aerosol features fixed in it to Granada conditions. SMARTS2 model offers increased flexibility concerning the selection of different aerosol models included in the code and provides the best results when the selected models are those considered as urban. Although SMARTS2 provide slightly worse results, both models give estimates of solar ultraviolet irradiance with mean bias deviation below 5%, and root mean square deviation close to experimental errors.This work was supported by Dirección General de Ciencia y Tecnología from the Education and Research Spanish Ministry through the project CLI-98-0957

Report on the metro light of Granada. Town planning opportunities of the metropolitan line on North-South central section of the underground

En el año 2004, la Consejería de Obras Públicas de la Junta de Andalucía, que promueve, financia, proyecta y construye el metro ligero de Granada, solicitó a la Universidad de Granada la constitución de una Comisión de Expertos a la que encomendaría la elaboración de un Informe Técnico que debía pronunciarse sobre la alternativa de que dicho sistema de transporte público, de carácter metropolitano, a lo largo del Camino de Ronda, entre el río Genil y Villarejo, discurriese soterrado o en superficie. El trabajo que aquí se expone no es el Informe de la Comisión de Expertos que es obligado decir que se pronunció, mayoritariamente, en favor de la solución en superficie -sino el que se elaboró, desde la dirección de uno de sus miembros, el prof. J.L. Gómez Ordóñez, catedrático de Urbanismo, por un equipo de investigadores, en el seno del laboratorio de Urbanismo. Este trabajo razona en sentido favorable al soterramiento, defendiendo, al mismo tiempo, un tratamiento, para la superficie del Camino de Ronda, muy aligerado de! intenso tráfico automovilístico de hoy. Aunque, posteriormente, la Junta y el Ayuntamiento acuerdan adoptar otro trazado, para el tramo entre Plaza Einstein y Villarejo, pasando por el Campus Universitario de Fuentenueva y La Caleta, el resto de la traza bajo el Camino de Ronda, fue finalmente soterrada. La publicación seis años después, ya con las obras muy avanzadas, de este trabajo técnico, obedece al deseo de divulgar información, análisis y criterios de decisión, que tienen valor, a nuestro juicio y el de los universitarios y colegas que han impulsado a hacerlo, más allá de la solución adoptada en este caso concreto, ya que se inscribe en el empeño actual generalizado, en muchas ciudades del el mundo, a favor del transporte público y por la disminución del flujo de automóviles. Las decisiones sobre la movilidad son muy complejas, envuelven muchas variables y presentan relaciones muy trabadas con otras políticas a medio y largo plazo que tienen que ver con el crecimiento y las transformaciones urbanas. Impulsan esta publicación el afán y el convencimiento de ayudar a que tales procesos de planeamiento y proyecto sean, lo más que sea posible, razonable y beneficioso para la ciudadanía. Contribuye, desde luego, a demostrar, que una línea de transporte público debe ser "un traje a la medida" para cada Ciudad. Debemos agradecer a la Junta de Andalucía la iniciativa impulsora de esta reflexión, aún más cuando no es habitual prestar esta atención a ámbitos de reflexión técnicos e independientes. Granada, Marzo del 2010.JUNTA DE ANDALUCI

Active commuting to school among 36,781 Spanish children and adolescents: A temporal trend study

This study examines trends in the rates of active commuting to school (ACS) in Spanish children (n = 18 343; 8.93 ± 1.68) and adolescents (n = 18 438; 14.11 ± 1.58) aged 6‐18 years from 2010 to 2017. Given the study period included the economic crisis in Spain (2008‐2013), the second aim of this study was to compare ACS rates during and after the economic crisis. Data were obtained from 28 studies conducted across Spain. The overall trends in ACS were evaluated using multilevel logistic regression analysis. Among Spanish children and adolescents, the rates of ACS to school ranged around 60% between 2010 and 2017. The rates of ACS in Spanish youth did not change significantly during the 2010‐2017 period, except a sporadic increase in the rate of ACS in adolescents in 2012‐2013. No significant association between the ACS and the economic crisis time period in youth was found. As conclusion, the ACS remains stable in Spain during the last decade, which is a promising result regarding the evidenced decreasing trend in many countries. Further educational and policy strategies are important to continue promoting this behavior in children and adolescents in the long term

Soundscape Attributes Translation Project (SATP) Dataset

The data and audio included here were collected for the Soundscape Attributes Translation Project (SATP). First introduced in Aletta et. al. (2020), the SATP is an attempt to provide validated translations of soundscape attributes in languages other than English. The recordings were used for headphones - based listening experiments. The data are provided to accompany publications resulting from this project and to provide a unique dataset of 1000s of perceptual responses to a standardised set of urban soundscape recordings. This dataset is the result of efforts from hundreds of researchers, students, assistants, PIs, and participants from institutions around the world. We have made an attempt to list every contributor to this Zenodo repo; if you feel you should be included, please get in touch. Citation: If you use the SATP dataset or part of it, please cite our paper describing the data collection and this dataset itself. Overview: The SATP dataset consists of 27 30-sec binaural audio recordings made in urban public spaces in London and one 60 sec stereo calibration signal. The recordings were made at locations as reported in Table 1 of the README.md (Recording locations), at various times of day by an operator wearing a binaural kit consisting of BHS II microphones and a SQobold (HEAD acoustics) device. Recordings were then exported to WAV via the ArtemiS SUITE software, using the original dynamic range from HDF. The listening experiment and the calibration procedure were intended for a headphone playback system (Sennheiser HD650 or similar open-back headphones recommended).  The recordings were selected from an initial set of 80 recordings through a pilot study to ensure the test set had an even coverage of the soundscape circumplex space. These recordings were sent to the partner institutions (see Table 2 of the README.md) and assessed by approximately 30 participants in the institution's target language. The questionnaire used in each assessment is a translation of Method A Questionnaire, ISO 12913-2:2018. Each institution carried out their own lab experiment to collect data, then submitted their data to the team at UCL to compile into a single dataset. Some institutions included additional questions or translation options; the combined dataset (`SATP Dataset v1.x.xlsx`) includes only the base set of questions, the extended set of questions from each institution is included in the `Institution Datasets` folder. In all, SATP Dataset v1.2 contains 17,441 samples, including 645 participants, for 27 recordings, in 19 languages with contributions from 29 institutions. Format: The audio recordings are provided as 24 bit, 48 kHz, stereo WAV files. The combined dataset and Institutional datasets are provided as long tidy data tables in .xlsx files. Calibration: The recommended calibration approach was based on the open-circuit voltage (OCV) procedure which was considered most accessible but other calibration procedures are also possible (Lam et. al. (2022)). The provided calibration file is a computer generated sine wave at 1kHz, matching a sine wave recorded using the exact same setup at SPL of 94 dB. In case of the calibration signal playback level set to match SPL of 94 dB at the eardrum, all the 27 samples should be reproduced at realistic loudness. More details on OCV calibration procedure and other options you can find in Lam et. al. (2022) and the attached documentation. PLEASE DO NOT EXPOSE YOURSELF NOR THE PARTICIPANTS TO THE CALIBRATION SIGNAL SET AT THE REALISTIC LEVEL AS IT CAN CAUSE HARM. License and reuse: All SATP recordings are provided under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License and are free to use. We encourage other researchers to replicate the SATP protocol and contribute new languages to the dataset. We also encourage the use of these recordings and the perceptual data for further soundscape research purposes. Please provide the proper attribution and get in touch with the authors if you would like to contribute a new translation or for any other collaborations