Soundscapes across cityscapes: relationships among biodiversity, sound, and human health in urban green infrastructure

The CitySoundscapes project aims to research the relationships between biodiversity, soundscapes and human well-being in an urban environment. Therefore, the project is divided into five work packages and will use three different research sites (Au, Harlaching, Neuperlach) within the city of Munich that represent three different type of urban structures. The team is dedicated to finding out about relationships between biodiversity and sound considering greenspace complexity and landscape imperviousness as well as about relationships between sound and human well-being. Data will also be collected using citizen science and the interdisciplinary results will be integrated into statistic models at neighbourhood- and city-scale. Validation and exploration of methods, studies, data and models as well as results will happen in workshops within the research sites in the living lab approach, exploring art-science interfaces and citizen-science as participatory process to create a holistic understanding of soundscapes. All data will be used to create GIS-based tools, guidelines, policy briefs and brochures to inform governing, scientists and citizens.

The collected data will be made public for stakeholders and citizens at workshops, discussed, and integrated into models. Testing the transferability of the models to other cities, data will also be collected in a smaller scale in Berlin. All data will be shared to the highest resolution with the community, stakeholders and policy makers respecting legal framework. This will happen through databases, brochures, scientific publications, workshops, policy briefs, brochures, and GIS-based tools.

How are biodiversity, soundscapes, and human health connected? The CitySoundscapes project is investigating how different structures affect urban sound in three areas of Munich. Soundwalks with citizens are used to collect data aimed to examine the effects of these soundscapes on human well-being. In addition, SoundSalons are actively drawing attention to the environment and its sounds. The aim of the project is to develop tools for an urban planning that intergrates positive sound.