Alleviation of noise annoyance generated by exhaust ventilation at a school campus surrounded by residential buildings

Noise is a widespread harmful environmental stressor that burdens large urban populations globally. Exposure to environmental noise at elevated levels increases annoyance and disturbance, posing substantial risks to both mental and physical health. While the dangers of noise exposure have been widely recognized, the quantitative relationship between noise exposure and psychological response is not well translated to the environmental noise community. This study attempts to estimate people’s annoyance generated by exhaust ventilation noise in a residential community through field measurements and theoretical exposure modeling. The sound pressure levels (SPLs) were sampled at multiple points first, and then a double-layer sound insulation strategy was implemented to reduce the noise levels. Acoustic computations show that the percentage of highly annoyed population in building A before and after duct-borne noise treatment were 11.6% vs. 9.8%, demonstrating reasonable alleviation of noise annoyance and voluntary compliance with the WHO health-based guidelines. Moreover, issues in current environmental noise regulations and their implementation were pointed out, offering suggestions for potential improvements in local legislation. Finally, the methodology and recommendations presented in this study can assist environmental health professionals and policymakers in their efforts to alleviate noise annoyance and develop informative noise control guidelines in the future.