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International audience; The twenty-first century noise exposure is a major public health problem in the general living environment, requiring effective noise measurements and analysis for public health protection. Noise pollution in the urban environments is becoming increasingly common and it has potential to harmfully impact on people?s health and decrease the overall productivity. The parameters that disturb the quality of life, such as annoyance is a serious problem that needs to be solved. Skopje, as the capital of North Macedonia, is a city that faces problem with the environmental noise that causes different forms of health problems. In this work, a methodology for choosing pilot area and analyzing the noise pollution in that area through objective and subjective point of view is presented. The chosen pilot area of interest is a place called ?Debar Maalo? located in the city center, place with lots of inhabitants, visitors and surrounded with four main streets that are really frequent. Measurement for the noise levels were carried out using 1st class hand-held device, from which the results indicated increased noise pollution. In order to confirm these measurements, as well do analysis from subjective point of view, a questionnaire was conducted, showing that the population is disturbed by the increased noise levels. A general questionnaire was applied to a sample of 93 inhabitants, employees and visitors in this pilot area. The results show that the sound caused from vehicles and engines that drive at high speed are the most annoying sound from the urban noise sources. This study is a base for further research of the bad influence of the noise and its reduction and prevention in order to clarify this complex area.

International audience; The intense globalization, the steady growth in population and the changes in infrastructure in the last decade have caused multiple environmental problems and negative environmental changes in the large cities. One of the most worrying problems that occurs in overpopulated and frequent urban cities is the problem of increased noise levels which can seriously affect human health. In the city of Skopje, as the capital of the Republic of North Macedonia, except for a few short-term measurements conducted by state institutions, no other measures have been taken to protect the citizens from the noise pollution. This work presents an environmentally sustainable solution based on an Internet of Things (IoT) platform in the city of Skopje for the purpose of 24-hour monitoring of the level of noise in several measuring stations in the city. The final goal of this platform is to serve as a monitoring portal and a credible source for an early warning system of increased noise levels in the city. This paper focuses on explaining the sensor design as well as the locations and functionality of the sensor network, providing information about the noise levels on different locations in Skopje. The data from the sensor network and obtained results in terms of understanding the noise pollution in Skopje are discussed.

International audience; The concept of Smart Cities and Internet of things for monitoring of environmental parameters is trendy area of research that has attracted scientific attention during the last decade. Amongst the several pollutant that have to be faced on a daily basis, the noise pollution is one of the most widely known emerging and challenging problem in all large metropolitan areas, affecting the health of citizens in multiple ways. Recent technologies of low- cost and low-power devices allowed researchers to develop monitoring devices for deploying Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) with a higher granularity than the traditional handheld analyzers, allowing massive noise monitoring. This paper presents prototyping of a low-cost acoustic sensor based on the STM32 platform for noise monitoring and analysis. The accuracy of the sensor is configured by comparing the results with professional handheld analyzer through calibration test. The acoustic sensor developed in this paper aims to be an appropriate replacement for traditional handheld SPL devices in that it possesses the same output of the sound pressure level and is also provides a continuous and autonomous data acquisition. Through this deployment it was demonstrated that the overall trends in urban noise can be observed and better understood with higher granularity network that allows continuous measurements, thus allowing gathering information that could help the citizens and the urban planners to improve city designs in order to accommodate the rapid urban growth and sustain the overall quality of life.

International audience; The European Union proposes noise protection measures adopted in accordance with European legislation, emphasizing environmental noise pollution as an important environmental problem. The legislation imposes European Directive 2002/49/EC, which aims to establish a common basis for addressing noise problems in Europe through noise maps which are a powerful tool for controlling the population exposure to environmental noise. In this paper, a noise map generation based on using the vehicle flows on four boulevards that enclose a living area in the center of Skopje, the capital city of North Macedonia is described. For this purpose, statistics on the flow of vehicles on the boulevards are provided by Traffic Management and Control Center. The noise simulations were created using the NMPB Routes 96 as noise propagation model and the IMMI Software as simulation software. This initial map was additionally upgraded and calibrated by performing short-term measurements at the intersections of these boulevards in order to differentiate the traffic noise pollution from the environmental noise. The possibility of having a map representation of traffic noise allowed for a more accurate view of the actual environmental noise situation, determining more quickly the causes of high noise levels and, consequently, any mitigation action required.