PROCEEDINGS of the23rd International Congress on Acoustics
9 to 13 September 2019 in Aachen, Germany

Noise and Soundscape Mapping in a Mountainous National Park ofSouth Korea
Kyong Seok KI1; Ji Su YOO2; Hunjae RYU3; Seo Il JANG4
1

Dept. Of Environmental Science and Landscape Architecture, Sangji University, Rep.of Korea
2

Dept. of Energy and Environmental System Engineering, University of Seoul, Rep.of Korea
34Korea Educational Protection Agency, Rep.of Korea

School of Environmental Engineering, University of Seoul, Rep.of Korea

ABSTRACT
National parks require conservation of the sound environment in order to secure the environment and habitat
quality. However, many national parks in Korea are exposed to various noise sources such as roads, airplanes,and cities. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the sound environment in order to preserve the habitat and theenvironment of national parks. The purpose of this study is to establish management plan through analysis ofnoise and sound environment for Taebaeksan National park. The noise map modeling result of Taebaeksan
National Park showed 91.5% of the total area less than 40dB (A). As a result of aircraft noise analysis, daily
average aircraft noise frequency was 54 times and 16 times per hour. Airplane noises occurred on Monday
and Friday by day of the week. As a result of soundscape mapping, the frequency of the biophony such as
various birds and insects was high in the valley. High altitudes were less frequent in wild animals. For thenoise management of Taebaeksan National Park, it was considered necessary to manage aircraft noise androad noise.
Keywords: road-traffic noise, aircraft noise, biophony, geophony, anthrophony

1. INTRODUCTION
Nature sound in quiet environment is one of the most important reasons for the existence of nationalparks(Haas and Wakefield, 1998). In order to maximize the experience of visitors in national parks,
conservation of sound environment is necessary(Newman & Dawson, 1998). Noise increases the risk ofaccidents by interfering with the communication between the rangers and visitors in dangerous activities innational parks(Lynch et al., 2011).
Most of the national parks in Korea are geographically adjacent to the city. and the density of infrastructuresuch as highway, railway, and airport is so high that the national parks are exposed to road-traffic noise,railway noise, and aircraft noise. There are many large facilities such as military bases or broadcast towers in
the ecologically sensitive highlands inside the national parks.
The purpose of this study is quantifying the anthropogenic noise in the national park in Korea through thenoise mapping and find out the noise impact on ecosystem. And Developing soundscape mapping and noise
analysis methods in the national park trails to investigate the impact on visitors and wildlife. This study canbe used as basic data for sound environmental management in national park.

1

gf@aaa.com
gf@bbb.co.jp
3
gf@ccc.go.jp [Please note: It is optional to provide the email address(es) of the author(s). Please make surethat your co-authors concur with the mention of their email address in this paper.]
4gf@bbb.co.jp
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2. Methods
The study area is Taebaeksan National Park (70.1㎢) of Korea. The study period is from May to December
2018. Noise mapping program is SoundPLAN(ver. 7.4.). Road-traffic estimation model (road-traffic noise,parking lot) is RLS90. Attenuation of sound during propagation outdoors is ISO 9613-2(1996). Grid size forcalculation is 50m × 50m. Spatial background is district of Taebacksan national park. Temporal backgroundis day-time (06:00 ~ 22:00). A-weighted equivalent noise level is LAeq [dB(A)]. Input variable is fieldmeasurement value. The number of field measurement points is 20 roads, 11 parking lots, 1 commercialdistrict, 1 park village and 2 wind farms.
Aircraft Noise mapping program is INM. Aircraft noise was measured in June 2018. The flight path of
the aircraft was visually identified from the field. Aircraft noise field measurement points were three flightpaths. The INM model application environment is temperature 70.9F, humidity 50.4%, wind speed 1.9kt,
air pressure 29.73 in-Hg, no precipitation (mm), weather clear. F16GE and A10A models were applied toaircraft noise modeling. The average number of flight training events was 60 times a day.
The sound environment survey method is Soundwalk. Sound recording equipment is Idampro digitalrecorder. Noise measurement equipment is Sound Level Meter GM156. GPS device is rambler. Spatial
background is Taebacksan national park trails. The number of trail sounding is 111 points. The survey
parameters were dB (A), sound intensity, preference, and satisfaction. Trail sound grade classification wasused for factor analysis and cluster analysis.
Soundscape analysis used sound files recorded in the national park(111 points). The types of soundlandscape analysis were biophony, geophony, and anthrophony. Biophony is divided into birds, mammals,and insects, geophony is wind and rain, anthrophony is people, cars, music, airplanes, and machine sounds.
The soundscape analysis program is Adobe Audition CC (version 6.0), Microsoft Excel 2010, and IBM
SPSS (version 23).

3. Results
3.1

Noise mapping

The noise map modeling result of Taebaeksan National Park shows that 91.5% of the total noise is lessthan 40dB (A), 5.4% is 40 ~ 50dB (A), and 3.0% is more than 50dB (A). In Taebaeksan National Park, lessthan 50dB (A) accounted for 96.9% of the total. If there is no aircraft noise, it means a very quietenvironment. The Taebaeksan National Park was spreading to the inside of the park by the penetrating
roads in the north and south. Especially, the noise around tunnel entrance was high.
As a result of analyzing the aircraft noise, daily average aircraft noise frequency was 54 times and 16times per hour. Aircraft noise was particularly common on Mondays and Fridays. As a result of the analysisof the aircraft noise map, the area over 50WEPCNL was 52.4% based on the whole park. The aircraft noise
intensity at the top of Taebaeksan peak, which is the most visited, is 70 ~ 75WECPNL. Aircraft noise isexpected to have a negative impact on visitors and creatures over the long term.

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Table 1. Area and ratio of road-traffic noise level in Taebacksan nationalparkdB(A)area(㎡)ratio(%)

less 35

58,866,668

83.8

35-40

5,436,378

7.7

40-45

2,301,273

3.3

45-50

1,520,945

2.2

50-55

1,254,046

1.8

55-60

667,945

1.0

60-65

144,469

0.2

65-70

49,6150.1

70-75

20,0780.0

over 75

4,876

0.0

Sum

70,266,294

91.5

5.4

3.0

a. Road-traffic noise map

100.0

b. aircraft noise map(c) OpenStreetMap contributors

Figure 1. Noise map of Taebacksan nationalpark

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3.2

Trail sound environment

As a result of the sound grade classification, the average sound grade (30.7%) was the most widelydistributed. The geophony dominant grade and noise impact grade were 21.6%. The biophony dominantgrade was 14.4% and the noise severity grade was 11.7%.
As for the spatial distribution of the sound grade, the Daedeok Mountain Valley in the northern part ofTaebaeksan National Park and the Baekcheon Valley in the southern part have good sound environment. On
the other hand, the bad sound environment was near the road and air force training area.
3.3Soundscape

As a result of soundcape analysis, Insect sound (60.8%) was the most widely distributed, followed bybirds (36.7%) and other animals (2.5%). There was a lot of insect sound around the valley part of thesoutheast side of Taebaeksan. And The northern forests of Taebaeksan mountain had a lot of wild birdsounds. Geophony was dominated by wind sound(67.8%), followed by water sound(24.7%). The ridge ofthe Taebaeksan National Park was dominated by wind sound and the valley was dominated by water sound.
Among the anthrophony, airplane sound (40.8%) was the most widely distributed. The people sound was28.6%, road traffic sound was 20.4%.

a. Trail sound gradeb. Soundscape map of Biophony6711

c. Soundscape map of geophonyd. Soundscape map of anthrophony
Figure 2. Trail sound grade map and soundscape map of Taebacksan nationalpark

4. CONCLUSIONS
We introduced the noise and soundscape mapping method of the mountainous national park in Korea.
The results show that Taebaeksan nationalpark is affected by road and aircraft noise. Such noise is expected
to lower the quality of the natural experience and adversely affect wildlife habitat. Therefore, we need torecognize the need for management of noise in national parks. The results of this study will be used as
basic data for noise management in national park.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study was conducted with the support of Korea Research Foundation (NRF-2017R1C1B1008457) and Korea National Park Service.

REFERENCES
1. Haas, G. E., & Wakefield, T. J. (1998). National parks and the American public: a national public
opinion survey on the National Park System: a summary report. The Association.
2. Lynch, E., Joyce, D., & Fristrup, K. (2011). An assessment of noise audibility and sound levels in US
National Parks. Landscape ecology, 26(9), 1297.
3. Newman, P., & Dawson, C. P. (1998). The human dimensions of the wilderness experience in the HighPeaks Wilderness Area(Master's thesis, State University of New York. College of Environmental
Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY).

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