The 3D Noise Mapping for Pearl River New Town of Guangzhou

Noise mapping has been recognised as a useful tool for city noise planning and management but 2D noise maps have limitations on determining and visualizing noise impact in urban areas. For more in-depth study of the temporal and spatial urban road traffic noise distribution, the main goal of this study is to develop a series of 3D noise maps for the Pearl River New Town of Guangzhou. These 3D noise maps were calculated at intervals of each hour from 6:00 a.m. to 24:00 p.m.. To achieve this goal, traffic flow data were acquired from GPS data collected by floating cars and the geographic data were extracted from GIS. To speed up the update of the 3D noise map, the attenuation items of noise propagation were calculated only once and stored in database for reuse, allowing a 3D noise map to be quickly updated when only the traffic noise source data is amended. The results show that, road traffic noise in the evening rush hour is smaller for its low vehicle speed although it has the largest traffic volume throughout the day.