Soundscape Preference of Urban Residents in China in the Post-pandemic Era

This research aims to explore the reality of the soundscape preferences of Chinese urban residents in general public landscape in the post-pandemic era, and then to propose design recommendations to meet the practical needs of people’s preferences for landscape—especially soundscapes—in the post-pandemic era. In this study, we utilized the subjective evaluation method to conduct an online questionnaire in 29 Chinese provinces which experienced severe pandemic caseloads and collected 860 valid responses. This study revealed people’s preference for landscape and soundscape in the post-pandemic era. We further studied the correlation between landscape preference and soundscape preference, analyzed the influence of living conditions on soundscape preference, founded the effects of personal characteristics and living conditions on soundscape preference, and explored the strongest influence factors on soundscape preference through the establishment of automatic linear model. The results revealed a positive correlation between life happiness and soundscape preference, whereas wearing masks significantly reduced soundscape perception ratings and people who have been vaccinated are more tolerant of various noises. Moreover, based on these analysis results, the design recommendations on landscape (overall landscape, plant, and tour space), soundscape construction of caring for vulnerable groups (teenagers and children, elderly people, and disabled and unhealthy) has been discussed.