Soundscape preferences and their associated non-material Nature's Contributions to People for residents and tourists at Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Soundscape data was collected on October 2021 capturing a diverse range of ecosystems on Kilimanjaro as part of the Kilimanjaro Social Ecological System (Kili-SES: https://kili-ses.de/) project. These raw data was collected deploying one Song Meter Micro recorder (Wildlife Acoustics) at breast height in the center of a 50x50m plot within each of 13 focal plots in the southern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The recorders were programmed for continuous, autonomous recording over at least four days, capturing soundscapes at a 44.1 kHz sampling rate and 18 dB gain.Each recording underwent acoustic analysis, allowing us to categorize them based on elevation zones and vocalizing patterns of species. This resulted in 13 distinct recordings representing seven acoustically unique ecosystems, capturing both dawn and dusk choruses (see Zipfolder to listen to these soundscapes). Please see kili_soundscapes_information.csv to see the calculation of different acoustic indices, and auxiliary data annotation to aid characterization of these edited recordings. These recordings (or soundscape tracks) were then used in a comparative survey conducted in August - November 2022 at Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania targeting tourists and residents of the southern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Each participant was presented with two recordings and asked to select a preference. Subsequently, they associated their selection with a specific prompt, related to non-material NCP, such as “it makes me feel at peace” or “it connects me with my home and/or culture”. Participants were allowed to select up to two prompts. The dataset here compromises responses from 211 and 149 anonymized residents and tourists, respectively (kili_soundscape_survey.csv). Please refer to the README document to understand the data structure of both datatsets. One README document for the survey information, and another one for the acoustic characterization of each soundscape track presented to participants.Included in the list of documents is the R code for data anaylsis (soundscape_approach_NCP.R)The zipfolder contains the the 13 soundscape tracks used in the comparative survey. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), Research Unit 5064: “The role of nature for human well-being in the Kilimanjaro Social-Ecological System (Kili-SES)” (Project Number 428658210).