The acoustic environment of Madrid hospitals: a GIS based analysis and diagnosis
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Abstract
The convenience of developing urban activities in the appropriate environment, particularly in noise terms, has being set rationally and regulated, in a clear way, due to its impact on human wellbeing and health. The recent availability of better acoustic data on urban space is enabling to determine the sonorous features of outdoor environment surrounding different facilities, and further to assess its adequacy.
This research, using GIS tools, faces to analyze the urban sonorous environment of the Madrid hospitals, an activity classified as «requiring silence areas (Type I)», according to the current municipal regulation.
To this aim, firstly the notion of acoustic environment of a facility is defined, and secondly a methodology, appropriate for analysing such urban facilities, is formulated and applied, using GIS and statistical techniques, and providing critical evaluation of it. As a result, it has been designed an effective procedure for assessing urban environmental situations and, additionally, for establishing noise source controls or alleviating inmissions.