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 what is noise pollution

Noise pollution rules ought to be tightened to shield life, say scientists
a group of people flying kites in the sky: Birds fly over abandoned aircraft in the suburbs of Bangkok in October.© AFP via Getty Images Birds fly over abandoned aircraft in the suburbs of Bangkok in October.
Noise created by human activities ought to be higher regulated to shield life, say the authors of a study exposing how sound pollution affects myriad creatures from fish to birds.
Related: Seals ar deaf in screaming shipping lanes, say scientists
Road traffic, aircraft, ships, factories and oil drilling are all human activities that produce noise, most – but not all – of which is typically below 4kHz. It overlaps with frequencies at which many animals communicate, and that is often a sensitive hearing range. Studies have found noise pollution to be linked to poorer human health, but experts say it can also affect wildlife, from disrupting their communication to affecting where they live and the efficiency with which they forage for food.
“For example in cracked, they try to locate their prey via acoustic cues,” said Dr Hansjoerg Kunc, the co-author of the research from Queen’s University Belfast. “If you have got the noise within the background they can’t very hear that, so they have to fly longer and invest more time and energy to find their food.”
Writing in the journal Biology Letters, researchers examined more than 100 studies on the effect of noise on a large variety of animals, from molluscs to mammals.
The studies were based on experiments in which different aspects of the animals’ behaviour or other measures, such as changes in hormone levels, were recorded before and after exposure to noise. The size of any shift from pre-noise behaviour was then calculated on a scale. The latest research took all of these calculations and put them together for six groups of animals, including fish and birds.
The results reveal that human-produced noise affects all six teams of animals thought-about, encompassing a wide range of species. While some studies showed greater effects than others, analysis carried out by Kunc and his team found this is not down to genetic closeness or the type of species.
“Thus, the numerous response to noise are often explained by most species responding to noise instead of many species being notably sensitive to noise,” the authors wrote. They accessorial that noise was vital from a conservation purpose of read as a result of it meant efforts to scale back the impact should take into consideration a bunch of species at intervals different ecosystems.
Kunc said noise “can change the species composition of an area, and then of course lose the function of an ecosystem.”
The team said it was highly probable that studies have underestimated the impact of noise, but cautioned that their research did not examine whether the effects were beneficial or detrimental to species. Such concerns, they added, were complex – for example, noise that disrupts hunting could benefit prey while creating difficulties for predators.
Even wherever some animals benefitted, that did not mean noise should not be tackled, since the majority would experience negative effects and it could cause disruption of ecosystems, said Kunc.
Related: Twitter storm: noise pollution creates havoc for birds, study shows
“We continually say global climate change, chemical pollution, plastic pollution and habitat destruction … but noise especially in urban areas can really have a negative impact on animals as well,” Kunc added.
Andy Radford, a professor of behavioural ecology at the University of Bristol who was not involved in the study, said particular species or populations might face different impacts – while some may be able to move away from the noise, for example, others may not, while animals might tolerate stress better than others. What’s more, even plants can be affected – for example if pollinators move away because of noise.
However, Radford said there was cause for optimism. “Unlike with, for instance, chemical pollution, if a noise supply moves away or is changed, then nothing lingers within the setting itself,” he said.
Traffic blaring on the ground, planes roaring through the sky, ships bellowing through the oceans—where humans go, they often make a lot of noise. Excess noise is known to have adverse health effects for humans, and according to a wide-ranging study published in Biology Letters, man-made noise should be considered a “major global pollutant” for animals, too.

Previous research has shown how noise pollution impacts specific creatures. Seals, for instance, may be deafened by the underwater rumble of shipping traffic, while stressful noise levels seem to cut short the life expectancy of zebra finches. But the new study, co-authored by Hansjoerg P. Kunc and Rouven Schmidt of Queen's University Belfast, is a meta-analysis, combining data from multiple studies to take a broad look at how noise pollution impacts a variety of species.

The analysis covered 108 studies of 109 species, which were divided into seven groups: amphibians, anthropods, birds, mammals, fish, reptiles and molluscs. Both terrestrial and aquatic animals were included in the analysis. According to the Guardian’s Nicola Davis, the researchers looked at studies that measured changes in species’ behavior or other traits, like hormone levels, both before and after exposure to noise. “The size of any shift from pre-noise behaviour was then calculated on a scale,” Davis explains. “The latest research took all of these calculations and put them together.”

All seven groups were impacted by anthropogenic noise, the researchers found, as were a wide range of species—from tiny insects to large marine mammals. In other words, Kunc and Schmidt tell Agence France-Presse, the issue should be viewed as the “majority of species responding to noise rather than a few species being particularly sensitive to noise.”

The study was too large-scale to delve into the ramifications of noise pollution; it assessed whether noise affects animals, but did not explore whether that impact is positive or negative. The answer is likely to change depending on context. Traffic noise, for instance, reduces the hunting efficiency of bats, which rely on acoustic cues to find prey. That’s bad news for the predators, but not such bad news for the critters they hunt.

Yet the researchers stress that noise pollution poses threats that could impact the survival of many species. Amphibians, birds, insects and mammals all rely on sound to convey essential information, like mating and warning signals. Fish larvae find their homes by following the sounds of coral reefs. Owls, like bats, use acoustic signals to locate prey. All of these fundamental behaviors are at risk if animals can’t hear properly over booming anthropogenic noise.

Changes caused by noise pollution do not occur in a bubble. Some birds, for instance, will steer clear of excessively noisy areas during migration, the researchers found. And this in turn reduces species richness—something that is vital to the health of the planet.

The researchers say that their study provides “the first comprehensive quantitative empirical evidence that noise affects many aquatic and terrestrial species.” And that is crucial from a conservation standpoint, because “it shows that noise affects not only a few species that we need to pay attention to but many species that inhabit very different ecosystems.”


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