Moradabad: Research commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in February may have incorrectly ranked Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, as the world’s second-noisiest city.
The chapter Listening to Cities: From Noisy Environments to Positive Soundscapes in the study Frontiers 2022: Noise, Blazes, and Mismatches digs into the harm caused by excessive noise levels and depicts the decibel range of noise levels in 60 cities throughout the world.
The city of Dhaka, Bangladesh, has the greatest sound levels — 119 decibels (dB). Moradabad, India, comes next on the list, with a value of 114 dB, followed by Islamabad, Pakistan, with a maximum dB of 105.
A research paper marked Mordabad as the second noisiest city in the world
While the report is made up of a variety of research papers that have assessed noise levels in these places, the data on Moradabad comes from a single study: Low- and middle-income countries have environmental noise challenges and legislation. The South Florida Journal of Health is a publication dedicated to the study of health in the state
This research paper, written by Dietrich Schwela of the University of York, makes no mention of Moradabad but does indicate noise levels in Aurangabad (42-102), Chandigarh (51-75), and Kolkata (51-75). (70-83). Schwela’s study is a compilation of studies by several writers from around the world, including independent authors’ studies on Aurangabad, Chandigarh, and Kolkata.
Another location mentioned in the Frontiers report is Asansol, India, which is also mentioned in Dr. Schwela’s study but, like Moradabad, is not mentioned.
There are no sensors placed in Moradabad
According to the ANI news service, Vikas Mishra, the head of the Pollution Control Board in Moradabad, “…there are no sensors installed by UNEP to measure such data here, and neither have we received any knowledge about such monitoring.”
The Hindu contacted Francesco Aletta of University College London, United Kingdom, the report’s principal author, to find out how Moradabad and Asansol ended up in the report. He said he was “unwell” and couldn’t comment right away. Dr. Schwela was also contacted by The Hindu, but no response was received.
There are rules in India that set the highest limit for noise levels. The maximum permissible noise level in industrial zones is 75 decibels during the day and 70 decibels at night. During the day and night, it is 65 dB and 55 dB in commercial zones, and 55 dB and 45 dB in residential areas, respectively. Noise levels should not exceed 53 decibels, according to the World Health Organization.
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) publishes an annual report on noise levels in a number of major cities. It also provides a unique report on noise levels the day before and after Deepavali to see how firecrackers affect noise pollution. However, Moradabad is not one of the cities covered by the CPCB’s noise-monitoring program.
Noise pollution has been linked to a variety of health problems. According to the Frontiers investigation, listening to music with earbuds at maximum volume ranging between 90 and 100 dB at the eardrum can cause hearing impairment after only 15 minutes every day. For an eight-hour day or longer, regular exposure to over 85 dB can cause irreversible hearing impairment. Long-term noise exposures, even at lower levels than those found in metropolitan settings, can harm both physical and mental health. Long-term noise exposure causes 12,000 premature deaths and 48,000 new cases of ischemic heart disease in Europe alone, according to the study.