“Noise is to sound what weeds are to flowers,” said Des from the Soundlandscapes blog when we were working together on a project earlier this year. I had made the mistake of saying that we needed to record some ‘noises’ rather than ‘sounds,’ and he quickly put me in my place.

However, as we began recording the sounds of the Jardin d’Agronomie Tropicale, it soon became evident that noise was in the air, too. The périphérique motorway was in earshot, and its dull constant rumble was polluting the natural rustles and chirps of the garden.

The delicate distinction between a noise and a sound once again popped its head up recently with the launch of a new website in Paris. Offering live updates on noise levels in the capital through a series of brightly colored maps and charts, it’s almost like a child’s game, though the subject itself is serious. “Noise is a very significant source of annoyance in Ile-de-France (the Paris region) due to the high concentration of housing and the exceptional density of transportation infrastructures,” the homepage reads. “Among disturbances of quality of life,” it continues, “noise is the first nuisance mentioned.”

The website was created by Bruitparif, a nonprofit organization which aims to fight noise pollution. Two kinds of maps can be found on the site: A static map, which paints the historic noise hotspots across the city (the darker the color, the higher the decibels), and a series of live charts from active captors in experimental zones (for example, next to motorways and train lines, and more interestingly, near the bars of the Rue Amelot).
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