Representation of the soundscape quality in urban areas through colours

Noise mapping is a useful and widespread method to visualise various items like the exposure to noise pollution, statistics of affected population, different noise source contribution analysis, and it is also a useful tool in designing noise-control plans. Some researches have moved a step further, proposing maps to represent the people perception of the acoustic environment. Most of these maps use colours as mere tools to display the spatial variability of acoustic parameters. In this paper the colours associated by interviewed people to different urban soundscapes have been analysed, and the possibility of using meaningful colours to represent the soundscape quality in noise mapping has been examined. For this purpose, correspondence analysis was applied on the data collected from on-site interviews, performed in the waterfront of Naples and its surroundings. The outcomes show that in the pedestrian areas nearby the sea, the blue colour was often associated with the soundscape rating, whereas in the areas nearby the sea but open to road traffic the interviewees selected mainly the blue and grey colours. In the areas away from the sea, a wider selection of colours was observed: red and grey were predominantly selected in the areas open to road traffic and green, yellow and red in the green areas.