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Who is the bigger culprit? Studying impacts of traffic and land use on noise levels in CBD area of Karachi, Pakistan

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Abstract

The trend of urbanization has attracted increased attention towards urban areas around the world. Central business districts (CBDs) serve as the core of commercial activities of urban areas and are often associated with high-density population. Noise pollution in urban areas, especially CBDs, is considered as an important issue for planners and policy makers especially with regard to human health. Noise prediction models for CBD area of Karachi, Pakistan, have been developed in this study using land use and traffic parameters. These models show that traffic and built-up space (especially residential land use) contribute positively and vacant space contributes negatively to the noise levels. However, it was found that traffic volume has higher impact, than land use, in terms of on noise levels in CBD area. The models of this research are anticipated to be used for planning of urban CBD areas in other cities where noise levels do not meet international health standards. In addition, they would be useful in calculating the rate of traffic volume associated with residential land use.

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Acknowledgement

The authors express their profound gratitude to meritorious Prof. Dr. Jamil H. Kazmi and the Institute of Environmental Studies, University of Karachi, Pakistan, towards completion of this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urban & Infrastructure Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan

    Mohammed Raza Mehdi

  2. Geoinformatics and Sustainable Development Research Lab, Institute of Space and Planetary Astrophysics, University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan

    Mudassar Hassan Arsalan

  3. Department of Geography, Sangmyung University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Minho Kim

  4. Department of Geosciences, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA, USA

    Jeong Chang Seong

  5. School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK

    Anil Namdeo

  6. Department of Environmental Engineering, Graduate Department of Energy and Environmental System Engineering, The University of Seoul, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Seo Il Chang

  7. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Bahrain, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia

    Uneb Gazder

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  1. Mohammed Raza Mehdi
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  2. Mudassar Hassan Arsalan
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  3. Uneb Gazder
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  4. Minho Kim
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  5. Jeong Chang Seong
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  6. Anil Namdeo
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  7. Seo Il Chang
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Correspondence to Uneb Gazder.

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Mehdi, M.R., Arsalan, M.H., Gazder, U. et al. Who is the bigger culprit? Studying impacts of traffic and land use on noise levels in CBD area of Karachi, Pakistan. Environ Dev Sustain 20, 1421–1438 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-017-9941-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-017-9941-9

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