Environmental Noise Pollution in Kolhapur City, Maharashtra, India

摘要

Kolhapur is rapidly emerging as industrialized and urbanized cities in the state of Maharashtra. In the recenttimes, the city has started facing noise pollution problems due to rapid industrial growth, increased humanpopulation, high traffic density and modernized man-made activities. The present study was carried out toassess the environmental noise pollution in four different selected locations of Kolhapur city viz., educationalarea, commercial-cum-residential area, industrial-cum-residential area and silence zone. The key noisepollution indices such as noise climate (NC), equivalent continuous noise level (L eq ) and noise pollution level(L np ) were computed for the selected noise polluting sampling sites. Results indicated that the highest noisepollution level of 80.15 dB(A) was observed in industrial-cum-residential area followed by 71.17 dB(A) incommercial-cum-residential area, and 70.21 dB(A) in educational area. Least noise pollution level of 45.64dB(A) was recorded in the silence zone, which also acted as control in the present study. Studies clearlyreveal the alarming condition of noise pollution in Kolhapur city.