Restoring Noise-Polluted Urban Environments

The purpose of the research project RESTORE (Restorative potential of green spaces in noise-polluted environments) is to study the effects of noise as an environmental stressor and impediment to recovering from stress and of GSs as a moderator. A further aim is to identify prerequisites of GSs to promote the reduction in noise-induced stress. The study protocol described here focuses on noise annoyance and long-term stress, provoked by road traffic noise exposure as the major technical environmental noise source, in a large field survey in the city of Zurich, Switzerland. We aim to assess the restorative potential of GSs in noise-polluted environments, to obtain new insights into the pathway from noise annoyance to physiological stress.
Our hypotheses are that (i) noise annoyance of people exposed to road traffic noise at home is associated with public GSs, (ii) self-reported stress of people exposed to road traffic noise at home is associated with public GSs and (iii) physiological stress of people exposed to road traffic noise at home is associated with public GSs.
To test our hypotheses, a cross-sectional study is carried out. The participants are selected and stratified according to both their noise exposure at home and access to GSs (see Section 2.2), with a focus on those with increased levels of road traffic noise. To identify the study sites in a stratified sample, the characteristics of interest are quantified in an explorative spatial analysis. The study consists of a field survey within a representative stratified sample of individuals, followed by a visit to the home of a subsample of the participants. The focus will be on noise annoyance; however, self-reported sleep disturbance will be examined as an additional outcome in all participants.