LOS ESPACIOS VERDES COMO ESTRATEGIA DE MITIGACIÓN DE LA CONTAMINACIÓN SONORA. EVALUACIÓN Y ANÁLISIS DEL PARQUE O’HIGGINS DE LA CIUDAD DE MENDOZA-ARGENTINA

Abstract

Noise pollution is one of the factors that deteriorate the environmental quality of cities, their habitability and productivity of their inhabitants. One of the viable strategies to mitigate this type of pollution are urban parks. These can be considered as acoustic vegetable screens that additionally provide numerous other benefits. The aim of this study is to quantify the sound levels and analyze the O’Higgins park characteristics in Mendoza city–Argentina, to determine its efficiency as a barrier to attenuate noise and improve the environmental quality. The sound levels are measured in four periods of the day and different points of the park (9) in summer and winter, with these, acoustic indicators have been calculated. The existing vegetation is characterized in situ with dasometric measurements. The first results show differences in sound pressure levels between seasons due to the presence of deciduous species that lose their foliage in winter (64-84 %). It is noted that for an effective masking of noise, the design, composition and distribution of park vegetation should be adjusted in terms of increasing the proportion of evergreen species that provide greater vegetation volume and lower transmissibility to noise.