DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10639661
title: The International Soundscape Database: An integrated multimedia database of urban soundscape surveys -- questionnaires with acoustical and contextual information

description: Introduction

The International Soundscape Database contains the results of a series of soundscape assessment campaigns carried out across Europe and China. The data collection process was conducted according to the SSID Protocol [1] which integrates in situ questionnaires about users' soundscape experience, with binaural recordings, sound level meter readings, and 360 degree video. The core of this database are individual soundscape questionnaires collected for 3,500+ participants completed in situ in cities across Europe and China, and the psychoacoustic analysis of 30s binaural recordings which can be matched up to each questionnaire.

The SSID Protocol was based on the ISO 12913 standard for soundscape data collection [2]. For more information on the specifics of how this data is collected, please see [1].

It is the intention that this dataset be added to and augmented with new locations, cities, and contexts in the future. This will be done both by the SSID team at University College London, but we also strongly welcome contributions from other researchers and practicioners. If a soundscape assessment is collected according to the SSID Protocol, it can be integrated with the rest of the database to form a large, cohesive, and ever-growing database of soundscape assessments. 

Analysis

Code for exploring and analysing this dataset is included as part of the Soundscapy package.

Included Files

This dataset incorporates surveys taken in multiple urban public spaces across several cities in Europe and China. These urban spaces include places like parks, urban squares, green spaces, and market streets. At each location, up to 100 questionnaires were collected over a series of multi-hour long sessions. Therefore the data is organised by LocationID, then SessionID, then GroupID.

The basic directory structure and contents can be found below. 

Survey Data (.csv)

'ISD v1.0 Data.csv' organises the data according to the labels given above.

Survey Metadata (.xlsx)

In addition a metadata file ('ISD v1.0 Metadata.xlsx') with photos and descriptions of each of the locations is provided. This metadata file also includes Data Dictionaries for each of the survey instrument versions included. These data dictionaries document precisely the questions asked and the available reponse labels and coding, along with the relevant translations.

Psychoacoustic Analysis (.csv)

The compiled csv file is formatted with a row for each individual participant's questionnaire response, then includes the psychoacoustic analysis of the 30s binaural recording taken while the participant was completing the questionnaire. Details about the psychoacoustic analyses is given in the 'Acoustic Settings' tab in the metadata file.

The compiled survey and psychoacoustic analysis data is contained in 'ISD v1.0 Data.csv'. This is compiled from raw survey data files contained in 'Survey_Data', with individual cleaned survey and psychoacoustic data files included in 'Survey_Data/Interim_<date>'. The scripts for compiling this data are included in 'Scripts/'.

Sound Level Meter logs (.xlsx)

'SLM_<city>/' folders include session-long (i.e. ~3hrs) sound level meter log data in.xlsx files for each SessionID.

Binaural Recordings (32-bit floating point .wav)

'WAV_<city>/' folders include the ~30s binaural recordings in 32 bit floating point .wav format. Within each city folder are a set of LocationID folders containing their associated recordings. The wav files are titled with its GroupID, which is matched to the corresponding survey GroupIDs. 

Cleaning and Compilation Scripts (.py)

Python code for cleaning and compiling the data from the raw survey data (within Survey_Data/source_data) are provided. These can be run within the provided demo notebook, or from the terminal by calling 'python -m ISDv1_main' with the relevant arguments. See the README.md file in this directory for more information.

├── ISD v1.0 Data.csv
├── ISD v1.0 Metadata.xlsx
├── SLM_Granada
│   ├── CampoPrincipe1_SLM.xlsx
│   ├── ...
├── SLM_Groningen
│   └── Noorderplantsoen1_SLM.xlsx
├── SLM_etc
├── Scripts
│   ├── ISDcleanDemo.ipynb
│   ├── ISDcleaning.py
│   ├── ISDpsycho.py
│   ├── ISDv1_main.py
│   ├── README.md
│   └── pyproject.toml
├── Survey_Data
│   ├── Interim_2024-02-08_cleaned
│   └── source_data
├── WAV_Granada_1
│   ├── CampoPrincipe
│   ├── ...
├── WAV_etc

Citation: If you use the ISD or part of it, please cite our paper describing the data collection protocol [1] and this dataset itself.

License and reuse: All ISD recordings are provided under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License and are free to use. We encourage other researchers to replicate the SSID protocol and contribute new locations to the dataset. We also encourage the use of these recordings and the perceptual data for further soundscape research purposes. Please provide the proper attribution and get in touch with the authors if you would like to contribute new data or for any other collaborations.

 

[1] Mitchell A, Oberman T, Aletta F, Erfanian M, Kachlicka M, Lionello M, Kang J. The Soundscape Indices (SSID) Protocol: A Method for Urban Soundscape Surveys—Questionnaires with Acoustical and Contextual Information. Applied Sciences. 2020; 10(7):2397. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10072397 

[2] ISO/TS 12913-2:2018 (2018). “Acoustics – Soundscape – Part 2: Data collection and reporting requirements” International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland, 2018

[3] Mitchell A, Oberman T, Aletta F, Kachlicka M, Lionello M, Erfanian M, Kang J. Investigating Urban Soundscapes of the COVID-19 Lockdown: A predictive soundscape modeling approach. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 2021.