Environmentally sustainable acoustics in urban residential areas.

The main aim of this thesis is to examine environmentally sustainable acoustics,
considering mainly urban residential areas. The study has systematically examined the
three essential aspects of environmentally sustainable acoustics, namely, people,
buildings and resources. The investigations are focused on three aspects: (l) the effects
of urban acoustics on people: a systematic field survey on people's perceptions which
considered people's living experiences, sound preferences and social factors; (2) a
series of buildings' life cycle assessments which examined the environmental impact
from cradle to grave of the building's lifespan and tried to further comprehend acoustic
sustainability of residential buildings; (3) various possibilities concerning the use of
wind turbines around and above the residential buildings in an attempt to discover how
to regenerate renewable wind energy and to avoid serious noise effects. The study has
then been expanded from the three aspects, by revealing potential to achieving
environmentally sustainable acoustics. Overall, it has been proved that
environmentally sustainable acoustics is an essential part of the environmentally
sustainability development.
The thesis makes a positive contribution to urban residential areas through the
illustration of a sustainable acoustics approach to environmentally sustainable
development, and demonstrates how these factors should be associated with each other.
Acoustics and sustainability is a rather new field this study only reveals some key
issues. More systematic and in-depth study in other aspects is still needed.