Explanatory Variable Generation for Geospatial Sound Modeling: Standard Operating Procedure.

摘要

The emerging field of soundscape ecology draws upon many principles from the field of landscape ecology. Of particular relevance to this study is the understanding that landscapes are defined by multi-scaled spatial and temporal relationships between patterns and ecological processes. Terrestrial environments are filled with sounds that vary in number, structure, and magnitude across time and space. Natural phenomena such as time of day, seasonality, location, terrain, weather, temperature, and animal distribution and behavior influence the structure and complexity of the natural acoustical environment. Statistical models were derived to investigate relationships between long term measurements of the ambient sound pressure level and non-acoustic geospatial features such as topography, climate, hydrology, and anthropogenic activity. These models were used to predict expected acoustical conditions across the contiguous United States, Alaska, and Hawaii. This document describes the processing used to generate the explanatory variables used in the geospatial sound models.