More green, less annoying? The moderating effects of greenery near home, noise sensitivity, and nature relatedness on road traffic noise annoyance

Noise is one of the greatest environmental health risks causing health issues via stress, deteriorated sleep, and annoyance. Noise annoyance is partially explained by measurable sound characteristics, and partially by other environmental, situational, and individual factors. Greenery might decrease noise annoyance via hiding the noise source, facilitating psycho-physiological restoration, and masking noise. However, whether greenery near home and some individual traits moderate the effect of road traffic noise on noise annoyance has been rarely assessed in everyday life. Using cross-sectional Environmental Health survey (n = 7321) collected at the Finnish capital region in 2015–16, we analysed the interactions between road traffic noise, green space, tree cover density, green view from home, noise sensitivity and nature relatedness on noise annoyance, using logistic regression modeling. Covariates included age, gender, socio-economic indicators, living floor, and the direction of windows. More green space and greater tree coverage around home were associated with lower odds of road traffic noise annoyance when road traffic noise was < 60 dB L_den but increasingly higher odds at higher noise levels. No other interactions were found. Green view was only tentatively associated with lower odds of noise annoyance. Noise sensitivity and nature relatedness were related to greater odds of noise annoyance. In conclusion, greenery might mitigate noise annoyance at low-to-moderate road traffic noise levels. At higher noise levels, greenery may even increase noise annoyance. This could be due to incongruency between expected and actualised soundscapes in greener areas. However, more studies, especially interventions, are needed to confirm this.