Descriptors and Indicators of the Acoustic Environment in Andorra and Escaldes-Engordany

Noise pollution is one of the growing issues in our cities. Every day the streets are full of vehicles of all kinds and works using noisy machinery; it seems difficult to find an area that escapes from this acoustic environment. Nowadays, multiple studies are being carried out in the area of engineering in order to be able to attenuate the causes of this noise pollution. Nevertheless, are only cars the cause of the noise in the city? Are there other noise sources that may affect the quality of life of the citizens? What defines a city as heavily polluted or not? Maybe it can be assumed that truck noise is annoyant and that it contributes to noise pollution, while the sound of birds does not and it is pleasant for people. This paper pretends to analyze the physical parameters that allow us to define if any sound causes annoyance, taking into account its acoustic environment. In order to do this, a specific case will be analysed; we will study three locations measured in Andorra La Vella and Escaldes-Engordany. The audio recordings will be studied deeply, and compared one to the other using data from two different days and all day schedule. We will finally evaluate the annoyance of each location, day and time, as well as giving details about the several types of sound labelled in that recordings.