Abstract

The Swedish Soundscape-Quality Protocol (SSQP) is a tool developed to evaluate and classify acoustic environments according to their acoustic perception by people. This protocol has been proposed by Axelsson, Nilsson and Berglund and it is based on a pleasantness-eventfulness principal component model. This model is feed by qualitative measurements of the extension of eight attributes of Soundscapes and allows one to classify the acoustic environments in four Cartesian quadrants: exciting, chaotic, monotonous, and calm. In the present work, the SSQP is applied in urban environments in four cities: Córdoba and Rosario (Argentina), Valdivia (Chile) and Lund (Sweden). The protocol was evaluated through 509 surveys conducted in 122 locations corresponding to 29 open public environments in these four cities. The evaluated environments included parks, squares, streets, avenues, pedestrian streets, cultural spaces, fountains and other recreational facilities. Results show that most urban parks and squares were classified as exciting, while a minority of them was assessed as calm. Most locations on streets and avenues were evaluated as chaotic, whereas most locations in pedestrian streets were categorized as exciting. Not a single urban environment was classified as monotonous.