One of the few upsides of lockdown was that, if a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square, you had a chance of hearing it.

Take the UK-wide scheme called The Quiet Project, which enlisted a network of acoustic engineers and researchers to map out changes to the ambient soundscape during lockdown. It has been building up a database of sound measurements that should act as an invaluable resource for understanding our acoustic environment: how sound correlates with economic activity, say, and how it affects wellbeing.

One of the project leaders, LSBU’s Professor Stephen Dance explained that often it’s a question of finding the happy medium. “You might like waking up when it’s quiet, but in the evening you might want the vibrancy”. The value associated with these positive and negative effects of sound has never really been measured, but this has been a chance. Professor Dance said that lockdown seemed to have lowered urban noise by about five decibels, mostly because of absent traffic. That’s a 60% reduction – certainly enough to be aware of.

This acoustic information could be useful for planners – for example, for cost-benefit analyses of how designated “tranquil areas” in cities can be preserved from development, or to plan for potential changes in the future. It should help to make better predictions of what things would be like if all vehicles were electric, say – which is possible in 10 years’ time. “You could quantify what you’d get to acoustically…and put a value on it – which is a factor in the economic costs of making that change.”

To read the full article, please see The Guardian here.