After the end of the Easter break and the completion of the last two assignments, the taught side of the Master’s degree has come to an end, indicating the initiation of the End of Year Research Project, which will be my main area of focus until the beginning of September.
The Project
The project is focused on “The Measurement and Analysis of Forest Acoustics”, supervised by Dr Frank Stevens and Dr Jude Brereton. I chose this topic because of the following reasons:
- I want to find out how forests and vegetation can be used to minimise urban noise.
- I find interesting the process of isolating and simplifying components of a complex system in order to study each individually. Outdoor acoustic measurements are complex and unpredictable due to the asymmetry of nature and the various parameters affecting the system, making forests very hard to predict and simulate.
- Minimum research has taken place in the field providing plenty of space for new ideas and opportunities for novel work.
The first deadline of this project is the Literature Review which needs to be submitted on the 13th of June. As a result, the next few weeks will be focused on determining the approach and aims of the project. This will be achieved through reviewing existing literature, in order to obtain a better understanding of the field. Then, the objectives for the final project will be created in order to meet the aims set.
Starting the Project
When approaching a project of such magnitude, it is important to understand the current state of the field. A small amount of research has been conducted on Forest Acoustics; therefore a good starting point would be the studying and reviewing of existing papers to identify the different components of the field. This on its turn, would help determine the final project’s approach as well as the next steps for the literature review.
Figure: Research Project Initiation
George Sarantinos 