Bringing soundscape auralizations to the urban city planning

The use of city-scale big data in urban planning practices has grown significantly over the past few decades, revolutionizing the way cities are designed and managed. This trend holds the promise of creating urban environments that better account for the perceptions, needs, and complex interactions of people with the built environment. However, despite these advancements, there remains a lack of comprehensive frameworks for incorporating the auralization of urban soundscapes into city-scale big data systems. The integration of soundscape auralization is critical, as it offers the potential to address the acoustic dimension of urban life, enabling more informed and human-centered urban sound planning. In this regard, soundscape auralization frameworks are expected to play a pivotal role in facilitating data-driven decision-making processes that enhance the auditory quality of urban spaces. This contribution aims to address the challenges associated with achieving such integration, outlining a structured workflow for creating soundscape digital twins-virtual representations of urban acoustic environments. The contribution will also highlight that these digital twins could serve as powerful tools for simulating and evaluating soundscapes, ultimately supporting urban planners in designing cities that are not only functional but also acoustically pleasant.