Noise is recognized as a slow and insidious killer. According to Robert Koch, ‘A day will come down when a man has to fight with merciless noise as the worst enemy of health’. The various effects of noise pollution can be classified as:
Effects of Noise Pollution:
1. Auditory impacts:
i. Hearing Loss: The most immediate and acute effect of noise is the impairment of hearing. The damaging of hair cells and eardrums occurs due to high and sudden noise and it leads to hearing loss.
ii. Acoustic Trauma: It occurs when a 130-decibel or louder blast of sound leads to mechanical destruction of the ear, rupture of the tympanic membrane, and crushing injury of hair cells. This type of trauma, often caused by firearms and explosions is immediate and permanent.
iii. Tinnitus: Workers suffering from noise-induced hearing loss experience continuous ringing in their ears and the condition is called tinnitus.
2. Non-auditory impacts:
i. Speech Inference and Sleep Inference: Noise pollution interferes with speech communication. One has to strain the ears to listen to something. Noise intrusion causes difficulties in falling asleep or awakens the ones in sleep, thus causing a sense of fatigue and palpitation upon awakening.
ii. Human Health impacts: Noise induces physiological effects on human beings such as dilation of pupils, the flow of saliva aq gastric juices, pain, and increased blood pressure leading to tension.
- Noise Pollution causes contraction of blood vessels, makes the skin pale and leads to excess secretion of adrenalin hormone into the bloodstream leading to high blood pressure.
- It causes nervous breakdown, tension, and even insanity.
- It affects health efficiency and behavior by causing damage to the heart, brain kidney, and liver.
- It affects pregnant women by the quickening of the human fetus’s heart rate and malformation of the central nervous system.
- It causes bickering, loss of working efficiency, ill temper, and violent behavior.
3. Effects on Human Properties:
The non-living things such as buildings undergo physical damage such as cracks, broken windows, doors, and glass by sudden and explosive sounds.