Impact of Sound Pollution on Animal and Human Health

At present, noise pollution is considered as one of the key problems which have numerous detrimental effects on both physical and social environment. Noise menace has negative bearing on both health and environment. Right from the inception of human civilization, noise has always been there but it was never so evident, so ubiquitous, so varied and as pandemic as seen in the first decade of this century. The effect of noise pollution is comprehensive and consistent. Sound pollution or environmental noise, mainly caused by transportation and transport systems like vehicles i.e. trains, planes, and machines, music systems, megaphones and industries refers to a sound that is annoying, a nuisance or undesired for the ears and badly affect the activity or behavior of the animal and human life. Animals struggle to adapt to the noisy environment in the urban areas. They have developed a range of adaptive strategies available for mitigating the adverse effect of environment noise on their use of acoustic information. However, these adoptions are at the cost of energetic expenditure, increased risk of predation, or lost opportunity for preening, feeding or mating. Apparent consequences may reduce fecundity rates and ultimately threaten their viability or survival in the urban areas. This article provides an opportunity to understand how anthropogenic noise can affect patterns of animal movement, reproduction, social relations and communications.