University students design noise monitors for the Centro Historico

The city and the the state university are working together on a campaign against noise pollution. Photo: UADY

Merida, Yucatan — Continuing a campaign against noise pollution, city authorities are collaborating with the Autonomous University of Yucatan.

UADY will design, build and install a technical system that translates into English as “Intelligent Digital Dome: Monitoring of Environmental Noise in the Historic Center of Mérida.”

A system of 25 wireless and energy-independent noise-monitoring devices will be installed throughout the Centro. Its sensors that will allow continuous monitoring of noise data.

The agreement comes after years of noise complaints that have followed a nightclub boom in the once-sleepy Centro Historico.

This project arises from a “Harmonic Coexistence” student competition within the framework of the “Intelligent City” forum.

Merida Mayor Renán Barrera Concha reported that this project, which has a budget of 870,000 pesos, is intended to impress on the public a clear understanding of the Centro’s noise-pollution problem, “as well as an interest in doing something about it. ”

“This tool will allow us to measure in real time the noise generated in the different streets of the historic center and, from that, take concrete measures to reduce this type of pollution,” he said.

The director of the Faculty of Engineering, José Ángel Méndez Gamboa, stressed that this agreement “will bear fruit and underpin relations between the university and the city hall.”

The agreement was signed by the UADY and the city council, Rector José de Jesús Williams and the mayor Renán Barrera Concha. Also present were the Director of Urban Development, Federico Sauri Molina and Enrique Ancona Teigell, president of the Board of Trustees for the Preservation of the Historic Center of Merida.

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