Urban Ecology
shler katorani
Abstract
Environmental pollution has attracted greater attention than ever before in the past three decades. On the other hand, noise pollution in cities is a global issue in most countries, considered today as one of the most important environmental problems. Noise pollution level is rising for various reasons ...
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Environmental pollution has attracted greater attention than ever before in the past three decades. On the other hand, noise pollution in cities is a global issue in most countries, considered today as one of the most important environmental problems. Noise pollution level is rising for various reasons such as the increase in population density, the increase in the number of motor vehicles in cities, establishment of industries adjacent to cities, and expansion of construction. The harmful effects of noise pollution on humans do not occur directly in the short run, but the short-term persistence has a significant long-term impact on man. Consequently, the physiological and psychological effects of noise on humans often emerge gradually, affecting the human nervous system in the long run, with negative consequences. In most of the world’s developed and developing countries, the issue of noise pollution has been attended to, and anti-pollution laws have been formulated and enforced. Given the role of noise pollution in the well-being of people in the community, it is of great importance to model and simulate sound transmission, partition noise pollution, and identify areas with excessive noise levels. The purpose of this study was to specify the level of noise pollution in the city of Sanandaj, Iran and its relationship with anxiety level. Therefore, fifty stations with residential, commercial, residential-commercial, and green space land uses were selected, and equivalent sound level was measured using an acoustic device and compared to the standard noise pollution level. In the next step, the obtained data were interpolated using the IDW geostatistical method in the ARCGIS10.4 software due to the lower error rate. The Hamilton questionnaire was then used for investigation of the effect of noise pollution on the citizens’ level of anxiety. The number of distributed questionnaires was 400, of which 351 could be referred to. The results indicated that mean equivalent sound level at all the examined stations was 71,621 dB. On average, the highest noise pollution concerned the commercial sector, followed by the residential-commercial sector, with equivalent sound levels of 73.70 and 71.32 dB, respectively, 60 dB higher than the allowed maximum according to the standard set by Iranian Department of Environment. The results of partitioning demonstrated that the central parts of the city had high levels of pollution. According to the statistical results, there were significant differences in equivalent sound level between all the land uses. The results obtained from the distributed questionnaires showed that there were significant relationships between the demographic variables and level of anxiety. People exposed to noise pollution were the most vulnerable group in terms of increased anxiety level. 54.42% of the respondents reported a high mean level of citizen anxiety, 21.46% reported a moderate level, and 26.82% reported a low level. The results demonstrated that there were significant relationships between the variables. Thus, the higher the noise pollution resulting from congestion, the higher the level of anxiety. The study showed that mean equivalent sound level was higher than the allowed maximum in the area under investigation. Therefore, it was suggested that there should be planning to reduce the noise pollution level and, consequently, the citizens’ level of anxiety along with an enhancement of well-being.
Urban Planning
Kyoumars Habibi; Jahede Tekyehkhah; Mohammad Azad Ahmadi
Volume 1, Issue 3 , August 2012, , Pages 13-23
Abstract
Natural tourism planning is the first step in tourism approach natural resource management in which prone areas for recreational planning is zoned. Aimed to identify the different forms of tourism zoning in Abidar natural forest park in Sanandaj City, a systematic analysis method was used. We produced ...
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Natural tourism planning is the first step in tourism approach natural resource management in which prone areas for recreational planning is zoned. Aimed to identify the different forms of tourism zoning in Abidar natural forest park in Sanandaj City, a systematic analysis method was used. We produced a recreational potential map using systematic analysis model in GIS. The results of this evaluation indicated that the study area lacks first class concentrated recreation potentiality and the maximum surface area of the study area has been consisted of the second class potentiality. To evaluate the impact of factors affecting tourists, 450 questionnaires were distributed among the tourists. The survey results indicated that most tourists have selected the area because of the access to water resources. The buffer map of water resource was prepared to promote the systematic analysis model and to assess the effect of water resources on different recreation classes of the model and it was integrated into a recreational potentiality map of system model and the final map of the recreational potentiality was prepared. The evaluation results showed that 6% of the area has first class concentrated recreational potentiality, 28 percent of the area has second class concentrated recreational potentiality, 35 percent of the area has first class discrete recreational potentiality, and the rest 31% of the area has second class discrete recreational potentiality. Comparing two recreation potentiality maps showed hat in systematic analysis model, the region does not have first class concentrated recreation place. However, scoring the water resources factor made 6% of the region earn first class concentrated recreation potentiality. The results of this survey indicated that water resources, herbal coverage, accessibility ways, and physical factors (gradient and direction) have the most effect on the evaluation process of recreation potentiality in the region as they are mentioned in order of effectiveness. While the effective parameters in recreation potentiality evaluation in systematic analysis model are gradient, soil, direction, water, plant, and climate. Based on our findings, it was found that recreational activities expected in broad zones include things like walking, trekking, visiting landscapes and snow skating, etc., which do not need to deploy and service of recreational trails, except in designing walking routes in certain circumstances. But, in areas having concentrated recreation zone, activities such as camping, family picnics, etc., require suitable facilities for establishment of tourism.
