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Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Automatic urban sound classification is a growing area of research with applications in multimedia retrieval and urban informatics. In this paper we identify two main barriers to research in this area - the lack of a common taxonomy and the scarceness of large, real-world, annotated data. To address these issues we present a taxonomy of urban sounds and a new dataset, UrbanSound, containing 27 hours of audio with 18.5 hours of annotated sound event occurrences across 10 sound classes. The challenges presented by the new dataset are studied through a series of experiments using a baseline classification system.

/pdf/a-dataset-and-taxonomy-for-urban-sound-research-2safjjyfrm.pdf

A Dataset and Taxonomy for Urban Sound Research

There is mounting empirical evidence that interacting with nature delivers measurable benefits to people. Reviews of this topic have generally focused on a specific type of benefit, been limited to a single discipline, or covered the benefits delivered from a particular type of interaction. Here we construct novel typologies of the settings, interactions and potential benefits of people-nature experiences, and use these to organise an assessment of the benefits of interacting with nature. We discover that evidence for the benefits of interacting with nature is geographically biased towards high latitudes and Western societies, potentially contributing to a focus on certain types of settings and benefits. Social scientists have been the most active researchers in this field. Contributions from ecologists are few in number, perhaps hindering the identification of key ecological features of the natural environment that deliver human benefits. Although many types of benefits have been studied, benefits to physical health, cognitive performance and psychological well-being have received much more attention than the social or spiritual benefits of interacting with nature, despite the potential for important consequences arising from the latter. The evidence for most benefits is correlational, and although there are several experimental studies, little as yet is known about the mechanisms that are important for delivering these benefits. For example, we do not know which characteristics of natural settings (e.g., biodiversity, level of disturbance, proximity, accessibility) are most important for triggering a beneficial interaction, and how these characteristics vary in importance among cultures, geographic regions and socio-economic groups. These are key directions for future research if we are to design landscapes that promote high quality interactions between people and nature in a rapidly urbanising world.

/pdf/what-are-the-benefits-of-interacting-with-nature-42h3n4ekoj.pdf

What are the Benefits of Interacting with Nature

Introduction - body and city: the passive body the plan of the book a personal note. Part 1 Powers of the voice and eye: nakedness - the citizen's body in Perikles' Athens the cloak of darkness - the protections of ritual in Athens the obsessive image - place and time in Hadrian's Rome time in the body - early Christians in Rome. Part 2 Movements of the heart: comunity - the Paris of Jehan de Chelles \"each man is a devil to himself\" - the paris of Humbert de Romans fear of touching - the Jewish ghetto in Renaissance Venice. Part 3 Arteries and veins: moving bodies - Harvey's revolution the body set free - Boullee's Paris urban individualism - E.M. Forster's London. Conclusion: civic bodies - multi-cultural New York.

Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization.

Over half of the world's human population lives in cities, and for many, urban greenspaces are the only places where they encounter biodiversity. This is of particular concern because there is growing evidence that human well-being is enhanced by exposure to nature. However, the specific qualities of greenspaces that offer the greatest benefits remain poorly understood. One possibility is that humans respond positively to increased levels of biodiversity. Here, we demonstrate the lack of a consistent relationship between actual plant, butterfly, and bird species richness and the psychological well-being of urban greenspace visitors. Instead, well-being shows a positive relationship with the richness that the greenspace users perceived to be present. One plausible explanation for this discrepancy, which we investigate, is that people generally have poor biodiversity-identification skills. The apparent importance of perceived species richness and the mismatch between reality and perception pose a serious challenge for aligning conservation and human well-being agendas.

https://bioone.org/journals/BioScience/volume-62/issue-1/bio.2012.62.1.9/Biodiversity-and-the-Feel-Good-Factor--Understanding-Associations-between/10.1525/bio.2012.62.1.9.pdf

Biodiversity and the Feel-Good Factor: Understanding Associations between Self-Reported Human Well-being and Species Richness

https://pure.hw.ac.uk/ws/files/9976552/Payne_The_Production_of_a_Perceived_Restorativeness_Soundscape_Scale._Revised._VERSION_FOR_WEBSITES.pdf

The production of a Perceived Restorativeness Soundscape Scale

This paper addresses two typically separate issues contributing to urban quality of life: increasing noise levels and declining quality of public green space. Drawing from environmental psychology, ecology and acoustical methods, this interdisciplinary research studied the soundscapes of three green spaces in a UK city through interviews with 70 park users, the measurement of habitat and recording of sound levels. The data reveal a prevalence of mechanical sounds and a hierarchy of preference for natural over people and mechanical sounds. There was a link between sound levels, both objective and perceived, and the type of sounds heard. The presence of these sounds varied across sites in part due to the ecological qualities of the place, specifically the presence of birds and shrub vegetation. The results suggest that people's opportunity to access quiet, natural places in urban areas can be enhanced by improving the ecological quality of urban green spaces through targeted planning and design.

/pdf/green-space-soundscape-and-urban-sustainability-an-1fbhlu02k6.pdf

Green Space, Soundscape and Urban Sustainability: an Interdisciplinary, Empirical Study

https://pure.hw.ac.uk/ws/files/41513535/1_s2.0_S135382921931158X_main.pdf

Nature doesn't judge you - how urban nature supports young people's mental health and wellbeing in a diverse UK city.

In urban environments, perhaps more so than in any other setting, people and nature must coexist in close, and sometimes uncomfortable, proximity. With half of the world’s human population living in cities and a continued decline of biodiversity in the wider landscape, urban nature plays an increasingly important role in creating cities that are both ecologically and socially sustainable. However, understanding the value of urban green spaces as a resource requires an integration of several, rarely overlapping, approaches to evaluating and managing these places.

Ecological and Psychological Value of Urban Green Space

The perceived quality of urban park soundscapes is starting to be explored, and attention restoration research has shown which environments are generally restorative. Yet the effect of perceived soundscapes on individuals' restorative experiences is hardly known. Natural environments, in general, provide restoration for people, including recovery from attentional fatigue and enabling reflection. Therefore the visually “natural” environment of urban parks provides a useful setting to explore the role of varying soundscapes in restoration. Four hundred park users within Sheffield, UK, were surveyed as they left two urban parks. Data were collected on aspects of their park visit, along with measures of their current perceived restoration. Participants' perceived soundscapes were described by the amount of time they heard certain sound types in the park, and the volume at which they heard them. Sound levels [LAeq, dB(A)] within the parks were also monitored on a number of days to provide contextual information. Results of the study will be discussed along with the importance of soundscape quality and individuals' restorative experiences in helping to provide a productive and positive quality of urban life.

/pdf/are-perceived-soundscapes-within-urban-parks-restorative-381d4jzg3d.pdf

Sarah R. Payne

Papers

The production of a Perceived Restorativeness Soundscape Scale

Green Space, Soundscape and Urban Sustainability: an Interdisciplinary, Empirical Study

Nature doesn't judge you - how urban nature supports young people's mental health and wellbeing in a diverse UK city.

Ecological and Psychological Value of Urban Green Space

Are perceived soundscapes within urban parks restorative