Soundscape: Progress in the past 50 years and challenges in the next 50 years

Soundscape is defined by the ISO as the 'acoustic environment as perceived or experienced and/or understood by a person or people, in context'. Different from conventional noise control engineering, soundscape promotes a holistic approach, regarding sounds as 'resources' rather than just 'wastes'. This paper first briefly reviews the soundscape progress in the past 50 years, showing that there has been a recognised focus shift from noise control to soundscape creation, and also a step change from soundscape concept to practice. Then the current developments and needs in soundscape are dis-cussed in terms of soundscape understating and exchanging, collecting and documenting, harmonis-ing and standardising, creating and designing, and outreaching, showing that while considerable works have been carried out, much work is still needed, in terms of basic research, and more im-portantly, research towards practice. Finally, some major challenges in the next 50 years are ex-plored, considering the new industrial revolution, climate change and changing living styles.