Community Soundscape Planning Guide: Controlling Noise & Protecting Natural and Cultural Sonic Spaces

This Community Soundscape Planning Guide is to be used by communities in the United States and other places, to focus land use planning within the context of the sonic spaces of built and natural areas locally.

This guide focuses on:

- Learning the Basics: helping planners understand what a soundscape is and what is noise

- Impacts of Noise on People and Wildlife: summarizes what is known about how sound affects people and wildlife

- Soundscape Workbook: allowing individual planners or community groups to work through major issues related to natural and cultural soundscapes and the occurrence of noise in their community

- Planning Tools and Resources: which describes tools already in existence and new tools such as an app and online mapping system developed at Purdue University.

This planning guide is also associated with several Purdue Extension projects that are underway and which can be offered to communities. This includes the online GIS-based tool called Tipping Point Planner which can be viewed at tippingpointplanner.org.