Jiang, L;
Kang, J;
(2016)
Combined acoustical and visual performance of noise barriers in mitigating the environmental impact of motorways.
Science of the Total Environment
, 543
(Part A)
pp. 52-60.
10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.11.010.
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Abstract
This study investigated the overall performance of noise barriers in mitigating environmental impact of motorways, taking into consideration their effects on reducing noise and visual intrusions of moving traffic, but also potentially inducing visual impact themselves. A laboratory experiment was carried out, using computer-visualised video scenes and motorway traffic noise recordings to present experimental scenarios covering two traffic levels, two distances of receiver to road, two types of background landscape, and five barrier conditions including motorway only, motorway with tree belt, motorways with 3 m timber barrier, 5 m timber barrier, and 5 m transparent barrier. Responses from 30 participants of university students were gathered and perceived barrier performance analysed. The results show that noise barriers were always beneficial in mitigating environmental impact of motorways, or made no significant changes in environmental quality when the impact of motorways was low. Overall, barriers only offered similar mitigation effect as compared to tree belt, but showed some potential to be more advantageous when traffic level went high. 5 m timber barrier tended to perform better than the 3 m one at the distance of 300 m but not at 100 m possibly due to its negative visual effect when getting closer. The transparent barrier did not perform much differently from the timber barriers but tended to be the least effective in most scenarios. Some low positive correlations were found between aesthetic preference for barriers and environmental impact reduction by the barriers.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Combined acoustical and visual performance of noise barriers in mitigating the environmental impact of motorways |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.11.010 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.11.010 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Sciences, Environmental Sciences & Ecology, Traffic noise, Visual impact, Noise barrier, Audio-visual performance, Multisensory perception, PERCEPTION, SOUND, URBAN, ENHANCEMENT, VEGETATION, LANDSCAPE |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Bartlett School Env, Energy and Resources |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10047791 |
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