Publication:

Day-night community noise level during COVID pandemic: a nationwide study

Background Community noise, also known as environmental or residential noise, encompasses all noise sources except industrial noise. The primary sources of community noise include road, rail, and air traffic, public construction works, neighborhood noise, and even industrial noise. During the lockdown, there was a complete shutdown across India, affecting all public sectors, institutions, and offices. This led to a significant reduction in community noise levels and their adverse effects. The aim was to measure day and night noise levels in various areas across India during the lockdown period and to compare these levels with available data from the pre-COVID era.

Methods For this study, community noise levels at specific times of the day and night were considered. Environmental ambient noise was measured on each measurement day, over a span of 30 separate days. During the lockdown period, data was collected from the locality using the "noise meter" application on an Android mobile phone, either from the balcony or the rooftop of the house.

Results This study showed that the noise levels were even considerably low than the permissible noise level criteria given by central pollution control board (CPCB). The day time noise levels measured during the lockdown in the various part of country ranged between 36.7 dB to 50.14 dB. And during the night time was in the range of 10 dB-47.44 dB which was considerably lower.

Conclusions These noticeable changes in the noise levels have given a scope of managing the noise levels by proper ordering of the activities accustomed to cause noise pollution and noise induced hearing loss also.