Lockdown during COVID-19 pandemic: impact on road traffic noise and on the perception of sound environment in France

Acoucite(1), centre of expertise in environmental acoustics and observatory of the sound environment, has investigated the changes in sound environment and its perception during the French lockdown period. The approach adopted is multidimensional, since it combines long-term acoustic measurements, large area noise mapping, as well as the study of sound perception self-reported by population sample through an on-line structured questionnaire. Data from 21 continuous sound monitoring stations(2) were analysed for the entire lockdown period in five conurbations in the south of France and compared to typical values in the "normal" situation (before lockdown) in order to quantify the reduction in terms of sound levels. Reductions from 4 dB to 6 dB (Lden) were observed for monitoring stations with highly dominant road noise. These results were used to obtain new Strategic Noise Maps for road noise (corresponding to the lockdown situation) for the conurbations of Lyon and Grenoble. The impact of such reductions in terms of noise exposure of their inhabitants was thus assessed. An estimation of the impact on health effects in comparison with the "normal" situation (Strategic Noise Maps "Round 3 CE-DE-2002") was also carried out. This estimation considers a scenario where the above level reductions (4 to 6 dB) would take place in the long-term. An on-line perception questionnaire was available during the lockdown period with the aim of gathering information on the way that the changes in sound environment were perceived by people all over France and ended up with more than 3000 respondents. This paper reports the main findings of the study in terms of acoustics and sound perception.