Inequalities in noise will affect urban wildlife

Understanding the extent to which systemic biases influence local ecological communities is essential for developing just and equitable environmental practices. With over 270 million people across the United States living in urban areas, understanding the socio-ecological consequences of racially-targeted zoning, such as redlining, provides crucial information for urban planning. There is a growing body of literature documenting the relationships between redlining and disparities in the distribution of environmental harms and goods, including inequities in green space cover and pollutant exposure. Yet, it remains unknown whether noise pollution is also inequitably distributed, and whether inequitable noise is an important driver of ecological change in urban environments. We conducted 1) a spatial analysis of urban noise to determine the extent to which noise overlaps with the distribution of redlining categories and 2) a systematic literature review to summarize the effects of noise on wildlife in urban landscapes. We found strong evidence that noise is inequitably distributed in cities across the United States, and that inequitable noise may drive complex biological responses across diverse urban wildlife. These findings lay a foundation for future research that advances acoustic and urban ecology by centering equity and challenging systems of oppression.