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      How did the ‘state of emergency’ declaration in Japan due to the COVID-19 pandemic affect the acoustic environment in a rather quiet residential area?

      other
      1 , *
      UCL Open Environment
      UCL Press
      acoustic environment, noise level, residential area, state of emergency in Japan, lockdown, COVID-19 pandemic, built environment, urban studies
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            Abstract

            The COVID-19 pandemic caused lockdowns in many countries worldwide. Acousticians have made surveys to monitor how cities became quieter under the lockdown, mainly in central areas in cities. However, there have been few studies on the changes in the acoustic environment due to the pandemic in the usually quieter residential areas. It may be expected to be different from the effect in ‘originally noisy’ areas. Also, the effect could be different in Japan, because the ‘state of emergency’ declaration there was different to lockdowns elsewhere. Considering these circumstances, this article reports the results of noise monitoring and makes some observations on the acoustic environment in residential areas far from city centres, to provide an example of how the acoustic environment was affected by the state of emergency declaration due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. The results showed that the reduction of noise levels was somewhat less than that reported in large cities. Also, comparing the results after the cancellation of the state of emergency, the noise level increased again. However, observations of noise sources imply that a possible change in human behaviour may have also affected the acoustic environment.

            Author and article information

            Journal
            UCL Open Environ
            UCLOE
            UCL Open Environment
            UCL Open Environ
            UCL Press (UK )
            2632-0886
            12 August 2020
            2020
            : 2
            : e009
            Affiliations
            [1 ]Environmental Acoustics Laboratory, Department of Architecture, Graduate School of Engineering, Kobe University, Rokko, Nada, Kobe 657-8501, Japan
            Author notes
            *Corresponding author: Email: saka@ 123456kobe-u.ac.jp
            Author information
            https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5322-7642
            Article
            10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000009
            10208345
            0dccbf42-eac3-4bda-b3c7-acf6b5dc62ed
            © 2020 The Authors.

            This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

            History
            : 30 May 2020
            : 20 July 2020
            Page count
            Figures: 9, References: 14, Pages: 9
            Funding
            This work received no external funding.
            Categories
            Open Commentary

            built environment,urban studies,COVID-19 pandemic,lockdown,state of emergency in Japan,residential area,noise level,acoustic environment

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            2020-09-23 15:24 UTC
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