The Global Soundscapes Project: overview of datasets and meta-data

This is an overview of the soundscape recording datasets that have been contributed to the Global Soundscapes Project, as well as associated meta-data. The audio recording criteria justifying inclusion into the current meta-dataset are: Stationary (no towed sensors or microphones mounted on cars) Passive (no human disturbance by the recordist) Ambient (no focus on a particular species or direction) Recorded over multiple sites of a region and/or days The individual columns are described as follows. General: name: name of the dataset (not necessarily unique) subset: incremental integer that can be used to distinguish sub-datasets collaborators: full names of people deemed responsible for the dataset, separated by commas date_added: when the dataset was added Space: realm_IUCN: realm from IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology (v2.0) (https://global-ecosystems.org/) medium: the physical medium the microphone is situated in terrestrial_GADM: for terrestrial locations, the smallest GADM unit that encompasses all study sites marine_EEZ: for marine locations, the Exclusive Economic Zone as per https://www.marineregions.org/eezmapper.php latitude_numeric_region: study region approximate centroid latitude in WGS84 decimal degrees longitude_numeric_region: study region approximate centroid longitude in WGS84 decimal degrees elevation_min_m: minimum elevation of sites from sea level elevation_max_m: maximum elevation of sites from sea level ground_distance_m: vertical distance of microphone from land ground or ocean floor water_distance_m: vertical distance from water surface sites_number: number of sites sampled Time: days_number_per_site: typical number of days sampled per site (or minimum if too variable) day: whether the sites were sampled during daytime night: whether the sites were sampled during nighttime twilight: whether the sites were sampled during twilight warm_season: whether the warm season was sampled. Only outside tropics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification) cold_season: whether the cold season was sampled. Only outside tropics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification) dry_season: whether the dry season was sampled. Only for tropics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification) wet_season: whether the wet season was sampled. Only for tropics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification) year_start: starting year of the sampling year_end: ending year of the sampling schedule: description of the sampling schedule recording_selection: criteria used to temporally select recordings (e.g., discarded rainy days) Land use: natural: whether the recording sites are situated in natural areas agricultural: whether the recording sites are situated in agricultural areas urban: whether the recording sites are situated in urban areas Audio: high_pass_filter_Hz: lower frequency of the high-pass filter sampling_frequency_kHz: frequency the microphone was sampled at audio_bit_depth: bit depth used for encoding audio recorder_model: recorder model used microphone: microphone used recordist_position: position of the recordist relative to the microphone during sampling Others: comments: free-text field URL: internet link for further information More information on the project can be found here: https://ecosound-web.uni-goettingen.de/ecosound_web/project/gsp