Avaliação do ruído de tráfego veicular em área central de Chapecó - SC

Abstract

The development of cities and population growth have led, among other urban problems, the increase in sound pressure levels of environmental noise. With the overcrowding of cities, the roads start to host large flows of vehicles, among other sound sources. These factors, coupled with the layout and massing of buildings, make the road a polluter responsible for sound pressure levels highly detrimental to health. In Brazil, noise has not been considered by urban planning policies. This study aims to assess the current conditions of urban noise pollution due to vehicular traffic on the downtown of Chapecó - SC. To this end, we sought to map the sound pressure levels, compare them to the municipal and federal laws relating to urban noise, to relate the sound descriptors of the traffic noise with the volume of traffic, to relate the geometry of the built environment with levels of sound pressure and compare the results with the rates proposed by the urban plan of the municipality. To conduct the survey data, was defined a mesh grid from which were located 14 measuring points. Data collection was performed at peak times and these data have been divided into acoustic quantities, geometrical quantities, quantities of traffic and meteorological quantities. The sound pressure levels collected from the study area had higher than those recommended by national standards at all times and points of measurement. From the linear regression analysis between the sound descriptors and flow of vehicular traffic, it was realized that the LAeq is not sufficient to explain the vehicular noise, because the variation of the LAeq is influenced not only by the variation in the number of vehicles, but also by the features the built environment of the road. The variation of LA90 and LA50 sound descriptors showed better correlation with the variation of the flow of vehicular traffic. The urbanistic indices proposed by the plan of the municipality stimulate the future shape of urban canyons, which can aggravate the problems related to noise from vehicular traffic in the local community.