Annoyance caused by community noise - interaction of sounds from road traffic and wind turbines

Sound from an additional source, for example rail road in addition to road traffic, modifies community noise response. However, interactions of response to low vs. high level sources are not known. The impact of wind turbine sound on annoyance with road traffic noise, and vice versa, was therefore explored. Immission levels of both sounds were assessed for respondents in a survey measuring response to environmental exposures (n = 725). Dose-response relationships for both road traffic and wind turbines were found. Neither sound masked the other, physically or cognitively. However, being annoyed by noise from one of the sources increased the risk for annoyance with the additional noise.