Identification, Prioritization, and Assessment of Urban Quiet Areas

Introduction

Urban growth, meaning the territorial expansion of a city area, along with the spatio-social process of urbanization, retain a dichotomistic conflict regarding quality of life (Dadras, Shafri, Ahmad, Pradhan, & Safarpour, S., 2015; Lal, Kumar & Kumar, 2017). They are both, beneficial regarding economic and social development and deleterious regarding the environmental issues that could possibly derive as a result (Smith, Smart, Dorning, Dupéy, Méley, & Meentemeyer, 2017). The development of urban settlements is tied to the initial phases of industrialization (Docampo, 2014). Furthermore, the environmental quality of urban areas seems to decline due to pollution, non-sustainable development and unplanned growth that could be the cause of rapid changes of both, the landscape and the soundscape of a city (Brueckner & Helsley, 2011; Votsi, Kallimanis, Mazaris, & Pantis, 2014).

The goal of the specific research is the creation of a protocol in order to identify and assess the potential quiet areas of Mytilene which is a city in Lesvos Island (North Aegean - Greece), while the aim of this chapter is to highlight the citizen science actions that took place. Islands are distinct systems rich in biological indigenousness and ecological eccentricities. They often represent frontiers for several ecological, biological and sociological processes, such as migration, population spreading and human demographic concentration. By studying clusters of islands, biologists view a simpler microcosm of the seemingly finite complexity of continental and oceanic systems. Islands also offer an advantage in being numerous, of multiple shapes and variable sizes, with different degrees of isolation and diverse ecologies. Therefore they provide the perfect laboratories in which the necessary experiments can be conducted by which evolutionary hypotheses can be tested (MacArthur & Wilson, 2015). In these environments, amongst the most valuable resources affiliated to them are the summations of the overall emerging sounds. They play a relevant role with respect to the maintenance of the sense of a place and its cultural value. The cultural heritage that represents an important component of the overall ecological complexity is under attack from human pressures (Farina & Pieretti, 2012). Islands remain the cradle within which to study speciations and endemisms, and have represented a source of epistemic-theoretical inspiration for generations of ecologists (MacArthur & Wilson, 2015). Therefore, small urban agglomerations and in particular small cities in islands and mainland coastal areas are fruitful places for soundscape research. Furthermore, islands and coastal cities are fragile systems with many ecological peculiarities. The rigorous human intervention on these systems, strongly affects the quality of the soundscape increasing the need for protection (Farina & Pieretti, 2012).