The Global Soundscapes Project: overview of datasets and meta-data

This is an overview of the soundscape recording datasets that have been contributed to the Global Soundscapes Project, as well as associated meta-data.

The audio recording criteria justifying inclusion into the current meta-dataset are:

• Stationary (no towed sensors or microphones mounted on cars)
• Passive (no human disturbance by the recordist)
• Ambient (no focus on a particular species or direction)
• Recorded over multiple sites of a region and/or days

The individual columns are described as follows.

General:

• name: name of the dataset (not necessarily unique)
• subset: incremental integer that can be used to distinguish sub-datasets
• collaborators: full names of people deemed responsible for the dataset, separated by commas
• date_added: when the dataset was added

Space:

• realm_IUCN: realm from IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology (v2.0) (https://global-ecosystems.org/)
• medium: the physical medium the microphone is situated in
• terrestrial_GADM: for terrestrial locations, the smallest GADM unit that encompasses all study sites
• marine_EEZ: for marine locations, the Exclusive Economic Zone as per https://www.marineregions.org/eezmapper.php
• latitude_numeric_region: study region approximate centroid latitude in WGS84 decimal degrees 
• longitude_numeric_region: study region approximate centroid longitude in WGS84 decimal degrees
• elevation_min_m: minimum elevation of sites from sea level
• elevation_max_m: maximum elevation of sites from sea level
• ground_distance_m: vertical distance of microphone from land ground or ocean floor
• water_distance_m: vertical distance from water surface
• sites_number: number of sites sampled

Time:

• days_number_per_site: typical number of days sampled per site (or minimum if too variable)
• day: whether the sites were sampled during daytime
• night: whether the sites were sampled during nighttime
• twilight: whether the sites were sampled during twilight
• warm_season: whether the warm season was sampled. Only outside tropics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification)
• cold_season: whether the cold season was sampled. Only outside tropics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification)
• dry_season: whether the dry season was sampled. Only for tropics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification)
• wet_season: whether the wet season was sampled. Only for tropics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification)
• year_start: starting year of the sampling
• year_end: ending year of the sampling
• schedule: description of the sampling schedule
• recording_selection: criteria used to temporally select recordings (e.g., discarded rainy days)

Land use:

• natural: whether the recording sites are situated in natural areas
• agricultural: whether the recording sites are situated in agricultural areas
• urban: whether the recording sites are situated in urban areas

Audio:

• high_pass_filter_Hz: lower frequency of the high-pass filter
• sampling_frequency_kHz: frequency the microphone was sampled at
• audio_bit_depth: bit depth used for encoding audio
• recorder_model: recorder model used
• microphone: microphone used
• recordist_position: position of the recordist relative to the microphone during sampling

Others:

• comments: free-text field
• URL: internet link for further information

More information on the project can be found here: https://ecosound-web.uni-goettingen.de/ecosound_web/project/gsp