Smart sound monitoring for sound event detection and characterization

As there is little doubt that the perception of one’s acoustic environment is mainly driven by noticed sound events, an environmental sound policy approach with a focus on the local urban neighborhood scale should address all noticeable sound events. These sound events have in common that they are not easily predictable, and that they show a very strong spatial variability. Dense urban sound monitoring networks are therefore well suited to assess such sound events, and could support a micro noise policy based on targeted action plans. This paper reports on the Smart Sound Monitoring project that was carried out on the Katendrecht peninsula, located within the Rotterdam harbor zone. A distributed measurement campaign using 12 intelligent sound measurement devices, active during several months, was carried out in combination with an online, continuous survey. Through the latter, inhabitants of the case study area were encouraged to signalize, instantly and triggered by perception, salient sound events that occurred around their dwelling, and to report their general sleep quality on a daily basis. The presented approach can be used to relate the occurrence and acoustical characteristics of sound events to reported events and sleep quality.