CNH-RCN: A Global Sustainable Soundscape Network

声音是所有景观的永恒和动态属性。 动物的发声和鸣叫声以及流水和微风的非生物声音都来自自然景观。相比之下，城市景观主要是由人类产生的声音辐射从各种来源，如机器，警报器，和轮胎在路面上旋转产生的摩擦。 自从雷切尔卡森的开创性著作《寂静的春天》问世以来，自然界的声音就与环境质量密不可分。由于声音是自然界的基本属性，并且可以受到各种人类活动的极大影响，因此声音为研究耦合的自然和人类系统的动态提供了一个有价值的视角。 近年来，生态学家，认知心理学家和人文学者已经开始从自然，社会和创造性学科的角度研究声景。 在美国工作，加拿大和欧洲正在这三个阵营中前进，几乎没有协调。 即使在生态共同体内部，也没有形成一个正式的小组，可以对研究进行整合和比较。 为了促进这些学者社区之间的互动，并邀请其他领域的学者研究声音作为人类和自然系统相互作用的衡量标准和视角，该奖项将建立一个研究协调网络（RCN），即全球可持续声景网络。 该RCN将汇集生态学家（景观生态学家和保护生物学家），声学生态学家（来自创意艺术）以及声学家和心理声学家（研究声音以及人们如何感知声音的科学家），以协调世界各地不同音景的研究。 该网络将通过支持研讨会、共享工具、社交网络和协调的“主题团队”的活动，帮助促进不同学科之间就声景的构成、控制动态的基本机制以及人类在环境中体验声音的方式进行公开交流，这些活动将涉及标准、跨学科能力建设、可持续性、以及保护和参与等问题。 RCN将协调已经和将要收集长期声学数据的四个或五个声景监测点的活动。 RCN将寻求为研究人员使用的声学数据制定通用词汇表、长期监测标准和元数据标准。 它将通过各种活动提高生态学家和社会科学家对这一新领域的认识，并将提高公众对人们与自然的声音联系的重要性的认识。 这个RCN项目也将影响教育。 将支助四名博士生作为研究员参加讲习班，并将与保护团体和自然资源管理机构协调举办两个讲习班。 四名本科生将在主办大学进行声景研究。这个研究协调网络将促进对声音作为自然和人类系统之间动态相互作用的衡量标准和视角的作用进行新的研究。 它将促进不同学科的研究音景的学者之间的更多联系，并鼓励其他研究人员参与其中。 RCN还将寻求扩大公众对音景的认识，并将通过让塔斯基吉大学和亚拉巴马A M大学的学者担任领导角色，促进代表性不足的少数群体成员的研究人员的参与。 该项目由NSF耦合自然和人类系统动力学（CNH）计划支持。

Sounds are a perpetual and dynamic property of all landscapes. The sounds of vocalizing and stridulating animals and the non-biological sounds of running water and rustling wind emanate from natural landscapes. In contrast, urban landscapes are dominated by human-produced sounds radiating from a variety of sources, such as machines, sirens, and friction generated by tires rotating over pavement. Since Rachel Carson's seminal book, Silent Spring, nature's sounds have been inextricably linked to environmental quality. Because sound is a fundamental property of nature and can be drastically affected by a variety of human activities, sound provides a valuable perspective for examining the dynamics of coupled natural and human systems. In recent years, ecologists, cognitive psychologists, and scholars in the humanities have begun to study soundscapes from their own natural, social, and creative disciplinary perspective. Work in the U.S., Canada, and Europe is moving forward in these three camps with little to no coordination. Even within the ecological community, no formal group has been formed that allows research to be integrated and compared. To facilitate interaction among these communities of scholars and to invite scholars from other fields to examine sounds as measures of and perspectives into human and natural system interactions, this award will establish a research coordination network (RCN), the Global Sustainable Soundscape Network. This RCN will bring together ecologists (landscape ecologists and conservation biologists), acoustic ecologists (from the creative arts) and acousticians and psychoacousticians (scientists that study sound and how people perceive sound) to coordinate studies of diverse soundscapes around the world. The network will help to foster open communication among different disciplines about the composition of soundscapes and the underlying mechanisms that control dynamics and the ways that humans experience sounds in the environment through the support of workshops, sharing of tools, social networking, and activities of coordinated "theme teams" that will address standards, interdisciplinary capacity building, sustainability, and conservation and engagement among other issues. The RCN will coordinate activities across four or five soundscape monitoring sites where long-term acoustic data have been and will be collected. The RCN will look to develop a common vocabulary, long-term monitoring standards, and metadata standards for acoustic data for use by researchers. It will increase awareness of this new field among ecologists and social scientists through a variety of activities, and it will increase public awareness of the importance of people's acoustic connection to nature. This RCN project also will impact education. Four doctoral students will be supported as fellows to participate in workshops, and two workshops will conducted in coordination with conservation groups and natural resource management agencies. Four undergraduate students will conduct soundscape research at host universities.This research coordination network will stimulate new research on the role of sound as a measure of and perspective on the dynamic interactions among natural and human systems. It will facilitate greater contact among scholars in different disciplines who are examining soundscapes, and it will encourage other researchers to become involved. The RCN also will seek to broaden public awareness of soundscapes, and it will facilitate the involvement of researchers who are members of underrepresented minority groups by involving in leadership roles scholars from Tuskegee University and Alabama A&M University. This project is supported by the NSF Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) Program.