UROP symposium noise pollution research presentation

Posted by Carina Terry

Nature makes no noise. The howling storm, the rustling leaf, the pattering rain are no disturbance, 

there is an essential and unexplored harmony in them. 

Henry David Thoreau

I recently had the opportunity to present my work on noise pollution in protected areas at the UROP Symposium at Boston University.

The UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program) Symposium is an annual event in which students have the chance to display their research in a poster session. At the 2019 Symposium, I presented a poster on my summer research on noise pollution in Blue Hills and Hammond Woods, two protected areas near Boston, MA. 

My poster and I in the exhibit hall. 

We found that the majority of wooded areas are much louder than natural, background noise levels and this is largely to due human-made noise pollution. We see a strong relationship between noise level and distance from road, with the loudest areas of protected areas closest to the roads. Further, we see that airplane noise significantly elevates noise levels in protected areas. We can use the noise maps we created to better understand how people and wildlife in the protected areas may be impacted by noise pollution. 

Presenting at the symposium was a great experience! Undergrads, graduate students, and several professors all stopped by to learn a bit about sound levels and ask some good questions, and I got to walk around the poster session and learn more about the research my peers have been doing.