Impacts of noise pollution on human health in different built environment: a case of Indore

Abstract

Many researches on environmental pollution in recent decades have concluded over its hazardous effects on living and non-living as well. The World Health Organisation defines “Pollution is the introduction of substances or energy into the environment, resulting in deleterious effects of such a nature as to endanger human health, harm living resources and ecosystems, and impair or interfere with amenities and other legitimate uses of the environment”. The recent studies that categorises the sources of pollution has made the researches easy to understand and find a solution or an alternate to reduce it and imply a less harm to nature and environment. The World Health Organisation has put “Noise Pollution” into the category of third most hazardous pollution making it severely affective to the mental and physical health of humans that could result in various behavioural changes and less workability. The impacts of noise pollution affect human health but most of the time its impact goes unnoticed by common people until and unless it severely affects people. There are many sources of noise with which we get exposed to in our daily life such as traffic noise, public spaces noise, aircraft noise, train noise, speakers, construction noise, industrial noise, household noise etc. but people do not consider its ill effects. Noise is an unavoidable source in our daily life which can cause auditory and non-auditory issues. The exposure to excessive noise can led to hearing loss, annoyance, headache, cardiovascular diseases, hearing impairment, and hypertension, affects cognitive development in children through cessation, and hinders performance at workplaces and many more. Noise is a slow and subtle source of an issue to a human health. Several studies have shown that most of urban areas exceeds the specified standard limits of noise. Central Pollution Control Board has installed ambient noise monitoring stations in seven metro cities those are Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Lucknow for properly monitoring the variation in the levels. The urban planning plays a very important role in reducing the impact of noise on human health or to reduce the generation of noise. Despite the proven results aboutv the noise interference in general well-being of people there is a need of a systemic approach to reduce its effects in an urban area. Indore is designated as the commercial hub of the state of Madhya Pradesh making it noisier due to various formal and informal urban activities carried out in various places all around the city. The population of the city is increasing at good exponential rate and with that the dependency on the vehicles is also increasing, resulting a rapid increase of contribution in noise pollution of the city. The other activities of the human being are also responsible in exceeding the standard limits of noise. After studying various socio-economic factors of the city responsible for Noise pollution it has been observed that the participation of public cannot be ignored in any case or circumstances. To make a city lively and functioning there is a need of public participation that makes an issue easy to understand and easy to rectify. It also helps to understand the seriousness of the issue to initiate some hard steps and precautionary measures in public interest, to secure the upcoming changes and load on the functioning of the city and of course to protect the wellbeing of its citizens. The study consists of observing and analysing the effect and the level of noise disturbance in the Indore city. It also studies about the areas where the noise levels exceed the standard limits set for different land uses by Central Pollution Control Board. The Sound level meter (Decibel Meter) is used for measuring the noise levels in the Indore Municipal Corporation area. The Human Health aspect has also been addressed by conducting a medical survey of more than a hundred samples with respect to the issues that patient suffers due to higher noise levels in their living or working vicinity. Depending on the noise measurements, the study is also been done at the micro-level hotspots of the city. By the end of this research, the study may address the identified harmful sources of noise in the urban areas and the characteristics of the city which led to increase the noise pollution level in the particular areas. It will come up with the solutions at the city level as well as at the micro level considering the suitable policy level recommendations.