NOISE ASSESSMENT IN STUDENT CENTRES OF UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA SABAH MAIN CAMPUS

Abstract

Knowing and unknowingly, noise pollution has its own negative impact on the quality of our everyday life. Assessment of noise during peak time in the main campus of Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) located in Kota Kinabaluwas highlighted in this paper. This assessment was conducted in several locations inside the campus between September to November 2013 where students are commonlypresent to study and gather. The location included are the university library, lecture hall and several students’ centres in Faculty of Engineering as it is one of the largest faculty in the campus. It was shown that most of the locations have average sound pressure level exceeds 35dBA as recommended by World Health Organisation (WHO) for good studying and teaching environments. Outdoor building of UMS Main library as the highest equivalent continuous sound level, Leq of 86.54 dBA while the indoor building of main library has the lowest with 32.74 dBA. Even in the lecture halls (DKP7,8 and 9), the average sound pressure level was between 68±1 dBA. This has shown that the noise level in the main campus is quite high. Precaution steps should be taken by both the university and students in reducing the noise especially in areas close to lecture halls and tutorial rooms. This is because without prevention and precaution of the unwanted sounds could disturb the concentration of students and thus reduce their study quality as well as giving negative psychology health impact.