Assessment of Noise Pollution in a School Building - A Case Study

Abstract

Rapid Urbanization and economic growth of the country has led to increase in vehicular population thereby increasing noise levels. Schools’ buildings especially located at major roadside are often subjected to higher outdoor noise levels wherein the performance of the student is reported to be decreased. Assessment of noise pollution in a school building and providing necessary mitigating measures are deeply felt to prevent deterioration of performance and health. Hence the present study is envisaged to investigate the impact of noise pollution on children in school building located along the roadside. A 12-hours measurements study is recorded in 30 minutes interval using DAWE (Model No. 1421C) sound level meter in Chaitanaya International High School for duration of one month. This study concern with measurement noise levels, its sources, and investigate the effects of noise in the working environment of school building. The study revealed that the LAeq values are between 66 ± 3.7 dBA which are higher compared to permissible values (50 dB (A) during the day and 40 dB (A) at nights) prescribed the Central Pollution Board, New Delhi. On studying the annoyance level, the respondents claimed that the road traffic noise, chatter in the classroom and scraping sounds from tables and chairs are the most annoying noise sources.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

Noise pollution is now recognized worldwide as a major problem with respect to human health and quality of life in any urban area. The increment in noise pollution has tremendously raised, but received lesser attention than other hazards. The rise in noise pollution led to a successive increment in health threats and most of the researches are directed towards finding the causes of noise pollution and understand them correctly to develop adequate suitable solution for such unwelcome matter. It is also making a harmful effect on future generation and has socio-cultural, aesthetic, and economic effects (1). However, in comparison with other pollutants, the control of environmental noise has been hampered by insufficient knowledge of its effects on humans and of dose–response relationships, as well as by a lack of sufficient data, especially in developing countries like India (1, 2).

Previous studies on noise conducted in different cities regarding different aspects of noise pollution recognized vehicular noise as a major source of noise pollution (3, 4). Noise caused by the road traffic noise is now days become the nuisance that is faced by the most of the roadside schools. School administration and students situated along the roadside are constantly complaining about increasingly problems face due to traffic noise. The adverse effect of environmental noise is reported on the growing children’s performance; personality, mentality and physical health of children are being recently recognized. (5). No study is reported on assessment of noise pollution and level annoyance in schools in Nagpur. Chaitanaya International High School, is considered as a study area for the present study since it is one of the school which is located on busy roadside with lot of noise pollution. On field study is conducted to measure noise levels to assess noise environment in the study area and Noise Pollution Levels (LNP) and Traffic noise index (TNI) of the locations surveyed are determined (1).

Conclusion

The present study shows that the noise level in the school is exceeded (rang 63-74 dB) compared to permissible value (50 dB) all the time, prescribed by the CPCB norms. This study shows that the noise levels in the classroom facing to main road have higher value (66 dB) compared to the standards for the classroom. The noise levels in the afternoon hours are noisier than the noise levels of the morning hours. The increased noise levels is found to be one of the cause for the deterioration of the students performance in the school, hence a focused attention is needed to create a good acoustic environment in a school building and the surroundings to reduce the noise levels.

References

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Copyright

Copyright © 2023 Idris Ahmed, A. R. Tembhurkar. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.