Abstract

People could have a relatively great visiting experience in blue space no matter from visual or audio perspectives. However, blue space gained less attention in previous soundscape researches. More and more studies have proved the effect of visual and audio experience on visiting satisfaction or even the restorative potential of the soundscape. This study conducted an on-site survey in different blue spaces in Xi’an, China to explore how the visual, audio, and overall visiting satisfaction and the restorative potential of soundscape interacted in blue space. Furthermore, the relationships among them were also explored in different visiting duration. The results suggested that (1) Visual satisfaction didn’t change over time while the soundscape satisfaction, overall satisfaction, and soundscape restoration peaked when people had stayed for 1 to 3 hours. (2) For four dimensions of soundscape restoration, Fascination peaked in 30 minutes to 1 hour, and Capability peaked in 30min-3h while Being-away and Extent remained constant. (3) As for overall satisfaction and soundscape restoration, the vision mainly contributed to them in the first 1 hour, while the hearing mainly contributed during 1 to 3 hours of experience. (4) As for POS (perceived occurrences) of sound sources, people could hear more natural sounds and human sounds in 30min-3h than in the first 30min. This study emphasized the importance of soundscape function in the planning and designing of urban blue space.