An assessment of noise audibility and sound levels in U.S. National Parks |
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| Authors: | Emma Lynch Damon Joyce Kurt Fristrup |
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| Institution: | (1) U.S. National Park Service, Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division, 1201 Oakridge Drive, Suite 100, Fort Collins, CO 80525, USA |
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| Abstract: | Throughout the United States, opportunities to experience noise-free intervals are disappearing. Rapidly increasing energy
development, infrastructure expansion, and urbanization continue to fragment the acoustical landscape. Within this context,
the National Park Service endeavors to protect acoustical resources because they are essential to park ecology and central
to the visitor experience. The Park Service monitors acoustical resources in order to determine current conditions, and forecast
the effects of potential management decisions. By community noise standards, background sound levels in parks are relatively
low. By wilderness criteria, levels of noise audibility are remarkably high. A large percentage of the noise sources measured
in national parks (such as highways or commercial jet traffic) originates outside park boundaries and beyond the management
jurisdiction of NPS. Many parks have adopted noise mitigation plans, but the regional and national scales of most noise sources
call for conservation and management efforts on similar scales. |
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