The Soundscape of the COVID-19 Lockdown: Barcelona Noise Monitoring Network Case Study †

Abstract

The lockdown social measures in Spain due to COVID-19 caused a significant decrease in urban noise levels, which was observed in most of the large cities. This paper presents an analysis of the noise levels in Barcelona, Spain, by means of an accurate analysis of the most relevant sensors deployed in the Barcelona Noise Monitoring Network. In this work, we present the $L_{Aeq}$ levels in eight different locations from January 2020 to June 2020—from Superblocks to industrial zones—including and detailing all stages of the lockdown. Several comparisons were conducted with the monitoring data available from the former years (2019 and 2018—when available). The results of the analysis in Barcelona show a drastic $L_{Aeq}$ reduction (−9 dBA), especially in nightlife areas of the city, moderate to high $L_{Aeq}$ change (−7 dBA) in commercial and restaurants areas and a small decrease in $L_{Aeq}$ (−5 dBA) in dense traffic areas.