Study on Noise Pollution in Some Selected Areas of Khulna City Area

Noise pollution associated with urbanization is a serious environmental problem in many developing countries in the world. Khulna, the third largest city of Bangladesh is not an exception. The aim of this study was to evaluate the level of noise pollution at different types of selected locations such as traffic congested areas, industrial areas, and commercial areas in Khulna city. The Noise level was determined through field experiment by a sound level meter (Multi-function Environmental Meter, Model: RH87). Moreover, the study was carried out to find out the effect of noise on human being in industrial area. For this reason, a series of questionnaire surveys were conducted on the local people in the study area. The study showed that the highest average level of sound (84.9 dBA) was observed at traffic congested area during 5:00 PM-8:00 PM and lowest average level of sound (68.3 dBA) was observed at industrial area during 8:00 AM-12:00 PM. The study revealed that traffic congested areas are the noisiest followed by commercial and industrial areas. The study also found that people faced problems such as headache, disturbance in sleeping, hearing and talking due to noise in industrial areas. From the measured noise values, a spatial distribution map of noise pollution was developed for the overall condition of noise level around the study area. Finally, an approach has been proposed by applying noise barrier to control the noise pollution in the city.