ENVIRONMENTAL NOISE MEASUREMENTS WITHIN ABUJA METROPOLIS

Abstract

This study was designed to determine the maximum ambient noise levels at strategic locations within Abuja metropolis, and thence proposing appropriate mitigating factors where it is discovered that the noise level exceeds the internationally-recognised threshold of 70dB. Measurements were carried out at the designated premises following the standard and uniform procedures of data collection. The original research work was planned for a period of twenty days, thus covering twenty different sites. For accuracy, it would have been appropriate to re-occupy each of those twenty sites a second time thus resulting in about forty days of data collection exercise. This was, however, brought to two days due to the high cost of leasing the equipment per day and associated logistics. Nonetheless, the result of this research shows alarmingly high ambient environmental noise values at all the stations occupied; the values measured at the electric milling section of the Wuse Market and at the security booth area of the A.E.P.B. office complex point to an obvious environmental emergency. This scientific study, hopefully, has helped put into the public consciousness the often-neglected menace of long-term exposure to noise levels that the general population has too often taken for granted; in this regards, then, appropriate recommendations have been proposed.