Mapping Sound Levels at Selected Telecommunication Base Transceiver Stations, Churches, and Mosques in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Developing noise maps for cities would be useful for assessing and managing the impact of environmental noise on residents. This study was conducted to develop soundlevel maps of parts of Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta region (5.317°N, 6.467°E) of Nigeria to inform impact assessment and management of noise pollution in the city. Using a GM 1352 Sound Level Meter (Benetech Inc., China) and a Garmin 76CX GPS (Garmin, USA), georeferenced sound-level data were collected from 100 telecommunication base transceiver stations (BTS), 50 Churches, and 6 Mosques within Port Harcourt and its environs. ArcGIS® v. 10.3.1 (ESRI Inc., USA) was used to develop the corresponding full-data point sound-level maps by the inverse distance weighting (IDW) spatial interpolation method. Results showed that the BTS sound levels in the residential areas (RA) ranged from 60.2‒80.7 dB (A), the mixed residential areas (MRA) ranged from 53.3‒75.5 dB (A), and the industrial areas (IA) ranged from 66.0‒74.5 dB (A). These sound levels exceeded their WHO permissible limits of 50 dB (A) for RA, 55 dB (A) for MRA, and 70 dB (A) for IA. The sound levels at the mosques (53.3–58.7 dB(A)) also exceeded the permissible limit for RA. On the other hand, the sound levels at the churches— except one (53.4 dB(A))—were less than the permissible limit for RA. Thus, residents around telecom BTS and mosques are more likely to be at risk of noise pollution than residents around churches.