Evaluation of Biophonies in Isfahan Parks, Using Acoustic Indices

Soundscape analysis, using acoustic indices, provides researchers with valuable ecological information to assess biodiversity, species behavior, and noise pollution. In this study,  to analyze biophonies and anthrophony in six urban parks in  Isfahan city in spring, six acoustic indices, including Acoustic complexity index (ACI), Acoustic Diversity Index (ADI), Acoustic Evenness Index (AEI), and Bioacoustic Index (BI), Normalized Difference Soundscape Index (NDSI) and Entropy Index (H) were used and quantified using  Seewave Package in R software. In the next step, using ANOVA test, we evaluated the significance of difference between values of the indices among the six parks. We also calculated the degree of correlation between pairs of the indices among and within the parks using Tukey test. According to the results of ANOVA and Tukey tests, the highest values of BI, NDSI, ACI, ADI, AEI and H indices were obtained for Sofeh Park with values of 51.63, 0.99, 2267, 1.46, 0.89 and 0.82, respectively and the lowest values of the these indices were also calculated for Mahmoud-Abad (16.56 and - 0.49), Isargaran (1787) and Bagh-Ghadir (0.05, 0.67 and 0.41) Parks. Among the indices, the most significant difference was calculated for the two indices of ADI and NDSI and between the Sofeh and Mahmoud-Abad Parks, indicating the effect of factors such as edge effect and birds diversity on these indices. Based on the results, it can be concluded that NDSI and BI indices are suitable tools for evaluating ecosystem quality and can be used in green space management and urban biodiversity assessment.