The pickleball seven decibel challenge

Noise emission from outdoor pickleball play and its potential impact to surrounding community receptors is often characterized as an impulsive source of sound, which would be consistent with ISO 1996-1 definition for a regular impulsive sound source that includes "outdoor ball games" as an example. But some recent noise assessments including those that may be found online are leaning towards elevating pickleball noise emission to the highly impulsive category and thus affording it a 12 dB adjustment instead of the 5 dB adjustment for regular impulsive noise--hence, a 7 dB difference that if confirmed would make pickleball noise compliance with applicable community regulations and policies much more difficult. This paper elaborates on the impulse noise category distinction as it may apply to pickleball play, and summarizes apparent support (or lack thereof) to cross the seven-decibel divide and how that might influence court development growth for the rapidly growing pickleball sport and potentially affected neighboring communities.