It's not just noise: The consequences of inequitable noise for urban wildlife

Abstract Understanding how systemic biases influence local ecological communities is essential for developing just and equitable environmental practices that center both human and wildlife wellbeing. With over 270 million United States residents inhabiting urban areas, understanding the socio-ecological consequences of racially-targeted zoning, such as redlining, will prove critical for urban planning. There is a growing body of literature documenting the relationships between redlining and the inequitable distribution of environmental harms and goods, green space cover and pollutant exposure. However, it remains unknown whether historical redlining impacts the distribution of urban noise or whether inequitable noise drives an ecological change in urban environments. We conducted 1) a spatial analysis of how urban noise corresponds 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 redlined urban communities across the United States, and that inequitable noise may drive complex biological responses across diverse urban wildlife, reinforcing the interrelatedness of socio-ecological outcomes. These findings lay a foundation for future research that advances relationships between acoustic and urban ecology through centering equity and challenging systems of oppression in wildlife studies.