Geoscape Buildings Enhances Ambient’s 3D Noise Map

Challenge

With cities becoming denser and more populated, the knowledge of transport noise levels is gaining significant importance. Excessive transportation noise is known to cause considerable damage to health. The World Health Organization (WHO) states transportation noise to be the second biggest environmental problem affecting people’s health after air pollution. It can seriously harm a person’s health, interfere with daily activities, disturb sleep and have cardiovascular and psychophysiological effects.

Environmental noise experts, Ambient Maps, developed a 3D representation of transport noise data for every address in Australia, calculating noise exposure levels for the day, evening, and night. The 3D map allows Australians to see the transport noise levels at every wall, of every level, of every building, and across all open spaces, across Australia.

Ambient needed a reliable and accurate buildings dataset to anchor its transport noise map. Any incorrect building alignments, absent buildings or a lack of accurate building heights would lessen the precision of the map. Data accuracy was a key requirement for Ambient and its clients.

Solution

Ambient used Geoscape Buildings as an essential layer in its 3D noise model Geoscape Buildings is derived from both satellite and aerial imagery, providing consistent data on a national scale.

Benefits

Ambient sought to provide actual noise exposure levels rather than a simplistic, estimated score. Greater levels of accuracy from Geoscape Buildings allowed Ambient to achieve this by incorporating building areas, heights, land zoning and addresses on a consistent, national scale. With the increased level of accuracy, Ambient’s 3D noise map can support a variety of use cases.

For instance, it can guide automatic valuation models (AVMs) in property pricing, allow health studies to attribute exposure levels to noise, and guide government planning in the construction of new, noise-sensitive developments.