A Study on Possible Solutions to the Challenges Associated with Limited Survey Locations in Community Noise Measurement Based on Noise Mapping in China

The spacing grid method (SGM) is one of the survey methods of urban area community noise measurement (CNM) on the surface ground in 2D directions. In order to settle the problems produced by limitation of time & funds and too many measurement locations, total sampling locations for CNM of the urban sound functional area grids have to decrease as few as possible based on results of mathematical optimization. The proper grid spacing recommended by the relative guideline can be taken as 500mX500m to 1kmX1km. This paper will discuss and illustrate practicability of this treatment. However, meanwhile locations number over every unit area should be considered. Theoretical simulations show that if the location density is too small, SGM related to total location number may get failure, for the noise in urban areas can propagate usually at most 200~300m, considering the barriers effectiveness from different obstacles. This paper also proposes to use popular noise map instead of SGM. The noise map not only reflects urban noise space distributions in 3D directions considering insulation of buildings, but also helps to reduce the original total survey locations efficiently. The reduced measurement results can be used conversely to the calibration of the noise map.