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Acoustic Sensing and Monitoring in Urban and Natural Environments (2nd Edition)

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 October 2025 | Viewed by 1966

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Hector Eduardo Roman

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Physics, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza 3, 20126 Milano, Italy
Interests: environmental noise monitoring networks; road traffic noise and mapping predictions; sensor networks and their optimization; cloud and fog computing applications.
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Human society tends to concentrate in urban areas to facilitate and improve its various activities. Historically, such large-scale aggregation processes have evolved without long-term planning and have not been designed to obtain optimized results. As a result, people living in large urban zones must cope with the deleterious action of many agents, of which anthropogenic noise plays a central role. It is indeed only recently that all these issues have started to be considered and studied seriously, guiding policy-making decisions to envisage the right intervention measures.

It is well known that noise pollution is an issue affecting millions of people worldwide and is currently considered one of the greatest environmental threats to people’s health. During the last several decades, great advances in sensor technology and monitoring strategies have helped to quantify anthropogenic noise pollution in both urban and natural environments. Clearly, sound from natural habitats lacking human influence can be considered as a benchmark to estimate the impact of anthropogenic activity in a particular surrounding. This observation may ultimately lead to the development of new approaches aimed at improving the quality of life in the presence of noise pollution.

The aim of this Special Issue is to gather experts actively working in different fields of acoustic phenomena, such as sensing and monitoring techniques in either urban or natural environments, to share their research work in the form of original papers or reviews to expand our knowledge on noise pollution. Contributions focusing on, but not limited to, the following topics are welcome:

  • Noise source identification and sound source location.
  • IoT-enabled acoustic sensing platforms.
  • Distributed acoustic sensing for urban subsurface/surface monitoring.
  • Wireless acoustic sensor networks.
  • Urban sound landscape and its corresponding noise identification.
  • Time series of eco-acoustic indices.
  • Monitoring of different types of noise, including wheel-rail noise, environmental noise, airborne noise, architectural acoustics, and vehicle noise.
  • Noise in natural environments, including earth surfaces and marine/submarine locations.
  • Sensor location distribution.
  • New methods for acoustic data processing based on AI approaches.

Dr. Hector Eduardo Roman
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • noise source identification
  • sound source location
  • wireless acoustic sensor networks
  • acoustic data processing

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 1181 KiB  
Article
Diffusion-Based Sound Source Localization Using a Distributed Network of Microphone Arrays
by Davide Albertini, Alberto Bernardini, Gioele Greco and Augusto Sarti
Sensors 2025, 25(7), 2078; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25072078 - 26 Mar 2025
Viewed by 325
Abstract
Traditionally, microphone array networks for 3D sound source localization rely on centralized data processing, which can limit scalability and robustness. In this article, we recast the task of sound source localization (SSL) with networks of acoustic arrays as a distributed optimization problem. We [...] Read more.
Traditionally, microphone array networks for 3D sound source localization rely on centralized data processing, which can limit scalability and robustness. In this article, we recast the task of sound source localization (SSL) with networks of acoustic arrays as a distributed optimization problem. We then present two resolution approaches of such a problem; one is computationally centralized, while the other is computationally distributed and based on an Adapt-Then-Combine (ATC) diffusion strategy. In particular, we address 3D SSL with a network of linear microphone arrays, each of which estimates a stream of 2D directions of arrival (DoAs) and they cooperate with each other to localize a single sound source. We develop adaptive cooperation strategies to penalize the arrays with the most detrimental effects on localization accuracy and improve performance through error-based and distance-based penalties. The performance of the method is evaluated using increasingly complex DoA stream models and simulated acoustic environments characterized by various levels of reverberation and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Furthermore, we investigate how the performance is related to the connectivity of the network and show that the proposed approach maintains high localization accuracy and stability even in sparsely connected networks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Monitoring in Urban and Natural Environments (2nd Edition))
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14 pages, 3420 KiB  
Article
Localization of Rock Acoustic Emission Sources Based on a Spaced Sensors System Consisting of Two Combined Receivers and a Hydrophone
by Yuri Marapulets, Albert Shcherbina, Alexandra Solodchuk and Mikhail Mishchenko
Sensors 2025, 25(4), 1197; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25041197 - 15 Feb 2025
Viewed by 469
Abstract
The paper considers the results of experiments on localization of the sources of geoacoustic radiation generated in near-surface sedimentary rocks. Geoacoustic signals from sources were recorded by a spaced sensor system consisting of two combined receivers and a hydrophone. The system was installed [...] Read more.
The paper considers the results of experiments on localization of the sources of geoacoustic radiation generated in near-surface sedimentary rocks. Geoacoustic signals from sources were recorded by a spaced sensor system consisting of two combined receivers and a hydrophone. The system was installed near the bottom of a natural water body (Mikizha lake) in Kamchatka. Radiation sources were located by two methods, a triangulation survey and estimation of the signal arrival time difference from spaced receivers. Coordinates for more than 40 sources were measured, and their space distribution was mapped. As the result of the experiment, it was stated that geoacoustic radiation sources are located in bottom rocks at the depths up to 2.20 ± 0.25 m at the distances of up to 8 ± 0.25 m. Localization of geoacoustic radiation sources is topical for projecting a new alarm system for the notification on the possibility of strong earthquake occurrence. The results of the analysis of the frequency of rock AE source generation and accurate estimation of their location will be the basis of this system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Monitoring in Urban and Natural Environments (2nd Edition))
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29 pages, 17264 KiB  
Article
Application of Transfer Entropy Measure to Characterize Environmental Sounds in Urban and Wild Parks
by Roberto Benocci, Giorgia Guagliumi, Andrea Potenza, Valentina Zaffaroni-Caorsi, H. Eduardo Roman and Giovanni Zambon
Sensors 2025, 25(4), 1046; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25041046 - 10 Feb 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 631
Abstract
Anthropized green zones in urban areas and their surroundings develop complex soundscapes, characterized by the presence of multiple sound sources. This makes the interpretation of the sound environment challenging. To accurately distinguish between different sound components, a combination of selective analysis techniques is [...] Read more.
Anthropized green zones in urban areas and their surroundings develop complex soundscapes, characterized by the presence of multiple sound sources. This makes the interpretation of the sound environment challenging. To accurately distinguish between different sound components, a combination of selective analysis techniques is necessary. Urban parks are significant and interesting examples, where the interaction between anthropogenic and biophonic sound sources persists over broad temporal and spatial scales, making them important sites for evaluating local soundscape quality. In this work, we suggest that a transfer entropy measure (TEM) may more efficiently disentangle relevant information than traditional eco-acoustic indices. The two study areas were Parco Nord in Milan, Italy, and Ticino River Park, also in Italy. For Parco Nord, we used 3.5-h (1-min interval) recordings taken over an area of about 20 hectares, employing 16 sensors. For the Ticino River Park, we used 5-day (1 min plus 5 min pause) recordings taken over an area of approximately 10 hectares, using a smaller set of eight sensors. We calculated the classical eco-acoustic indices and selected two of them: the acoustic entropy (H) and the bio-acoustic index (BI), calculated for all sites with a 1 min time resolution obtained after a principal components analysis. For these time series, we studied the TEM of all sites in both directions, i.e., from one site to another and vice-versa, resulting in asymmetric transfer entropies depending on the location and period of the day. The results suggest the existence of a network of interconnections among sites characterized by strong bio-phonic activity, whereas the interconnection network is damped at sites close to sources of traffic noise. The TEM seems to be independent of the choice of eco-acoustic index time series, and therefore can be considered a robust index of sound quality in urban and wild park environments, providing additional structural insights complementing the traditional approach based on eco-acoustic indices. Specifically, TEM provides directional information about intersite sound connectivity in the area of study, enabling a nuanced understanding of the sound flows across varying anthropogenic and natural sound sources, which is not available using conventional methods. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Monitoring in Urban and Natural Environments (2nd Edition))
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