Analysis of the Noise Impact of the Airport of Barcelona to the Llobregat Delta Natural Environment during the 2021 Lockdown period

The noise caused by airports and its impact on human health, together with train, road traffic, leisure and wind nose has been widely analyzed, even in the reports published in 2019 by the WHO. Noise effect ​has also been studied in the literature on other species, such as birds and amphibians. In this work, we focus on a natural environment of special singularity ​due to its location: the natural space of the Delta del Llobregat, next to the city of Barcelona. Placed in an area close to the Port of Barcelona, and right on the way out of the planes taking off at Barcelona airport. In this paper, we present a first analysis of the typology of the sounds found in the natural environment of the Delta del Llobregat after conducting a simultaneous recording campaign at three separate spots of biological interest, determined by the park's curators. We measure the intermittency of interfering sounds, as well as the intensity of wildlife sounds in relation to the noises caused by the airport activity. The recordings and posterior analysis were made on March 5, 2021, when airport activity was still greatly diminished by the lockdown. This first analysis shows clear acoustic impact on the environment, especially during the operational peak hours of the airport. Results encourage us to deepen the study, even with more data recordings and metrics definitions in the future, to consider the Delta del Llobregat airport activity in the new conditions after the COVID-19 pandemic.