Crowdsourcing urban soundscape in Seoul using social media

Abstract

Due to increasing noise sources in cities, a pleasant acoustic environment is regarded as a significant factor in improving the quality of life. However, traditional noise management focuses on decreasing the physical sound pressure level (dB) rather than considering the qualitative aspects of urban spaces. This approach has limitations in fulfilling sound environmental satisfaction. Recently in Europe, acoustic environment plans are shifting their paradigm from noise reduction to ‘soundscape’ design. Soundscape can be an indicator that discovers physical and non-physical elements of sound, and the socio-cultural context of urban areas based on human perception. Therefore, this thesis performs soundscape analysis perceived in urban spaces using social media Twitter. To do this, we established a soundscape taxonomy and classified soundscape types in the central and southeast neighborhoods of Seoul. The results of this study confirmed that human activity-related soundscape is dominant in the entire site, and the central district has a sensory-related soundscape compared to the southeast district. These also provide basic information on the connection between urban planning and soundscape design and can contribute to the creation of an acoustic environment that reflects the features of urban areas.