Within the boundaries of many municipal urbanized areas, large grounds are found, from which the noise is emitted into the environment, surrounded by the regions liable to acoustic protection. Such a condition generates many problems including also those ones related to the lack of the fulfillment of requirements concerning environmental protection against excessive noise. Therefore the aim of vital importance is the proper management of municipal grounds, both in view of the investment in policy steering, especially of new investments, and in the case of activities aimed at maintaining or restoring (revitalizing) the acoustic properties on the grounds that have already been used or simply degraded before.

Keeping the scale of the problem in mind, such activities must be carried on not temporarily, but must have a systemic character. The structure of every system is characterized by the appropriate relationships among their elements and the properties of those relationships. In case of the noise management system, the elements of such a system are the activities connected with the management itself that are the actions which rely on specifying the aims and causing their realization within the scope and on the grounds subject to the managing entity. The superior aim of such activities should be to supply the tools for improvement of management and in the process of taking decisions that relate to investments including the of optimization conditions and maintenance of socio-economic importance of such areas.

The above-presented methodology for spatial classification of roads in relation to their acoustic annoyance can be used in preparing acoustic maps of towns. The classification of roads with the view of the level of acoustic hazard enables, just in the initial phase of acoustic map preparation, to identify the areas potentially endangered with excessive noise. These areas need taking immediate corrective actions, aimed at reducing the noise level. An important problem, when analyzing the propagation of noise in a highly urbanized area, is the selection of locations in which the measurements of emission of the noise source are performed with the aim to determine its acoustic parameters for calibration of the assumed methodology. Solving this problem makes it possible to use uniform methods of computation. The development of the proposed method and supplementing the layers with next ones, containing information about the range of influence of vibration generated by roadway transport routes, or information on the effects of mining on the roads and building structures, using the proposed methodology, will enable to make an unambiguous categorization of transport routes in the aspect of their vibro-acoustic impact on the environment.

The article presents the results of soundscape assessments conducted in urban parks in the Silesian Voivodeship. The Silesian Voivodeship is characterised by a high degree of industrialisation and the greatest population density in Poland. The studies were conducted in the urban parks of all the cities in the voivodeship with populations of over 100,000 citizens. This selection was determined based on acoustic maps that are prepared for cities with populations of over 100,000 citizens as required by law, and on the fact that the role of urban parks is frequently marginalised in the context of city life. The goal of the studies was to define an objective acoustic appeal assessment method for urban parks in city centres. Measurements were carried out in 34 parks located in the centres of 12 cities. A-weighted sound levels LAeq were determined for 107 measuring points in urban parks and the streets adjacent to them. Differences in the A-weighted sound levels LAeq were presented for each studied park and the adjacent streets. Minimum and maximum sound values were subsequently determined for each measuring point. Significant differences in the minimum and maximum sound values in given locations were found despite minor differences in LAeq values. It was also discovered that though parks may often exhibit high A-weighted sound levels LAeq, there are other factors that influence the appeal of park soundscapes.