The urbanisation phenomenon and related cities expansion and transport networks entail preventing the increase of population exposed to environmental pollution. Regarding noise exposure, the Environmental Noise Directive demands on main metropolis to produce noise maps. While based on standard methods, these latter are usually generated by proprietary software and require numerous input data concerning, for example, the buildings, land use, transportation network and traffic. The present work describes an open source implementation of a noise mapping tool fully implemented in a Geographic Information System compliant with the Open Geospatial Consortium standards. This integration makes easier at once the formatting and harvesting of noise model input data, cartographic rendering and output data linkage with population data. An application is given for a French city, which consists in estimating the impact of road traffic-related scenarios in terms of population exposure to noise levels in relation to both a threshold value and level classes.

Noise pollution reduction in the environment is a major challenge from a societal and health point of view. To implement strategies to improve sound environments, experts need information on existing noise. The first source of information is based on the elaboration of noise maps using software, but with limitations on the realism of the maps obtained, due to numerous calculation assumptions. The second is based on the use of measured data, in particular through professional measurement observatories, but in limited numbers for practical and financial reasons. More recently, numerous technical developments, such as the miniaturization of electronic components, the accessibility of low-cost computing processors and the improved performance of electric batteries, have opened up new prospects for the deployment of low-cost sensor networks for the assessment of sound environments. Over the past fifteen years, the literature has presented numerous experiments in this field, ranging from proof of concept to operational implementation. The purpose of this article is firstly to review the literature, and secondly, to identify the expected technical characteristics of the sensors to address the problem of noise pollution assessment. Lastly, the article will also put forward the challenges that are needed to respond to a massive deployment of low-cost noise sensors.

This paper presents an alternative model for predicting the reverberant sound field in empty rooms with diffusely reflecting boundaries, based on the generalization and the numerical implementation of a diffusion equation for the energy density. The paper focuses on the source term and the boundary conditions of the diffusion equation, both for the steady state and the time-varying state, in order to make computational use of the model. In addition, theoretical analysis of the diffusion equation shows that the diffusion model may be considered as an extension of the classical theory of reverberation to nondiffuse sound fields. The numerical model is first applied to a cubic room and shows a very good agreement with statistical theory. Two numerical applications are also given for a long room and a flat room; results are in good agreement with numerical results from a ray-tracing software. The main advantage of the present model is its capability to be applied regardless of the complexity of the room shape, and that it gives results at any receiver location, with a low calculation time.

A numerical model is proposed to predict the reverberant sound field in a system of two coupled volumes that are connected through an open aperture. The model is based on the numerical implementation of a diffusion model that has already been applied to predict the sound-energy distribution and the sound decay in single rooms. In comparison with the statistical theory, the proposed approach permits the prediction of the sound field by taking into account the sound source location and the receiver locations as well as the transition from one room to the other at the coupling aperture. Moreover, the diffusion model results match satisfactorily the experimental data in terms of sound-pressure level and reverberation times, both in the room containing the source and in the receiving room. Simulations with a ray-based model are also carried out, leading to results similar to those of the diffusion model, but at a cost of larger computation times.