The Role of Noise Assessment
Noise assessment and control is a vital, yet often invisible part of suburban life. Local councils, town planning, and police departments work together to identify and monitor ongoing noise issues, and implement solutions that, hopefully, resolve those issues with finality. New speed bumps and roundabouts on long straight streets, denser treelines and vegetative areas, and the issuing of fines and warnings are all entrenched, infrastructural ways that communities fight back against disruptive nuisance noise. But for that infrastructure to be implemented, extensive monitoring and data collection needs to take place beforehand. That is the task of environmental health officers.
What Does Community Noise Monitoring Look Like?
Using traditional noise monitoring techniques is a pretty thankless task. It means standing around with the monitoring device for endless hours in order to capture as much data as possible, usually outside of business hours. For a long time, it led to high employee turnover, high stress levels for management, and longer timelines on resolution projects, extending the amount of time it took for nuisance noise issues to quieten down. Add that to the process of resolving community-sourced noise complaints and the mediation process that’s required, and it’s easy to see why the suburbs can be so noisy.
That’s why we invented NoiseNet. Now, community leaders have a tool that can monitor noise without needing an officer on-site and provide more comprehensive data than ever, letting them focus on developing the solutions that boost community health.
How Does Monitoring Translate to Solutions?
Once the data is gathered, it would be easy to just file it away to be a footnote in the next annual meeting. But luckily, the community doesn’t quieten down so easily. Noise is one of those issues that residents get very vocal about – in fact, loud flight paths have actually played a key role in our most recent elections here in Brisbane. With this in mind, the community never really lets their leaders forget about noise – and, in turn, this means that those in charge of implementing solutions are pretty proactive about it. Road noise, in particular, gets a lot of attention, with speed bumps and roundabouts doing double duty to slow motorists down and prevent the sound of screaming engines, while thicker vegetation and treelines around roads muffle whatever still gets through. Other kinds of noise, like animals, industrial equipment, or domestic noise, all take a bit more planning and consideration – but as with all these issues, careful data collection and compassionate enforcement are at the heart of community action, and all lead to positive, quieter outcomes for the wider community.
If you’re a government worker looking to help your community quieten down, head over to https://go.noisenet.com/your-needs today to see everything that NoiseNet can do to help your journey along.
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