Noise Source Predominance Map: a new representation for strategic noise maps

Abstract Environmental noise prevention starts from strategic noise maps of main transport infrastructures and agglomerations. Graduated colors are representative of the average noise levels produced in space by each individual source, or the by the overall sum. Among their purposes, communication of results to population has been the most neglected. The present paper proposes predominance maps for the first time in environmental acoustic (NSP). NSP are visualization tool showing the predominant source in each point by means of polygons and colors. Also Intensity Noise Source Predominance maps (I-NSP) are proposed, which add visualizations of noise exposure levels to NSP by coloring the polygons according to a color-scale. Both NSP and I-NSP are new visualization that would help understanding and assigning responsibilities for exceeding limits, but they also represent a valid support for locating the acoustic monitoring stations when required. As case studies, the maps are calculated in port areas, as they are large areas with a great variability of different types of noise sources and represent a smaller case than agglomeration, but with higher complexity.