Who is the bigger culprit? Studying impacts of traffic and land use on noise levels in CBD area of Karachi, Pakistan

Mohammed Raza Mehdi, Mudassar Hassan Arsalan, Uneb Gazder*, Minho Kim, Jeong Chang Seong, Anil Namdeo, Seo Il Chang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)
24 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The trend of urbanization has attracted increased attention towards urban areas around the world. Central business districts (CBDs) serve as the core of commercial activities of urban areas and are often associated with high-density population. Noise pollution in urban areas, especially CBDs, is considered as an important issue for planners and policy makers especially with regard to human health. Noise prediction models for CBD area of Karachi, Pakistan, have been developed in this study using land use and traffic parameters. These models show that traffic and built-up space (especially residential land use) contribute positively and vacant space contributes negatively to the noise levels. However, it was found that traffic volume has higher impact, than land use, in terms of on noise levels in CBD area. The models of this research are anticipated to be used for planning of urban CBD areas in other cities where noise levels do not meet international health standards. In addition, they would be useful in calculating the rate of traffic volume associated with residential land use.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1421-1438
Number of pages18
JournalEnvironment, Development and Sustainability
Volume20
Issue number3
Early online date27 Mar 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2018
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • CBD area
  • Karachi
  • Land use
  • Noise prediction
  • Traffic

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Who is the bigger culprit? Studying impacts of traffic and land use on noise levels in CBD area of Karachi, Pakistan'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this