Noise Levels in Beech Bottom, WV | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
54 dBA
Average noise across Beech Bottom
Quiet office to normal conversation
147
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
33% of Beech Bottom residents
64 dBA
Loudest residential point
Busy restaurant
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Beech Bottom at 100-meter resolution, combining road, aviation, and rail sources. Green areas measure below 45 dBA. Orange and red exceed the EPA's 55 dBA outdoor threshold linked to long-term health effects. Use the layer toggles to view each source on its own or all together.
Overall
Road
Rail
Aviation
Click the map to explore
35 dBa55 dBa (EPA limit)90+ dBa
3545557090
Quietest (dBA)Loudest
Colorblind friendlyoff
What the numbers sound like
30 dBAWhisper
40 dBASoft rainfall
45 dBAQuiet suburban street at night
50 dBAQuiet office
55 dBAEPA outdoor threshold: light traffic 100 ft away
60 dBANormal conversation an arm's length away
65 dBABusy restaurant
70 dBAHighway traffic 50 ft away
80 dBACity bus interior
Population Above the EPA Outdoor Threshold
The EPA's 55 dBA outdoor reference level is a common benchmark for residential noise exposure, especially for activity interference, annoyance, and long-term community noise concerns. About 147 Beech Bottom residents, or 32.6%, live above that level. By land area, 28.0% of Beech Bottom is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Beech Bottom residents, grouped by direction from the center of Beech Bottom. Central Beech Bottom carries the highest population-weighted average; Northern Beech Bottom carries the lowest. Just 18% of residents in Northern Beech Bottom live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about two-thirds of the share in Central Beech Bottom.
Central Beech Bottom
54.4 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
32% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Beech Bottom
52.1 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation
18% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Beech Bottom
54.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
44% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Central Beech Bottom sounds about 17% louder than Northern Beech Bottom to the human ear, a 2.3 dBA gap. Every 10 dBA roughly doubles perceived loudness. Within any of these directions, two homes a quarter mile apart can still differ by 10 or more dBA depending on how close they sit to a major highway.
How far back from River Rd do you need to be?
River Rd produces an estimated 61 dBA at its loudest centerline points. Noise drops logarithmically with distance, with the exact rate depending on what's between you and the road. Tree cover, walls, terrain, and pavement type all matter. At roughly a quarter mile back, traffic fades into the noise level of a soft rainfall.
At source
61 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
165 ft
49 dBA
Quiet office
330 ft
41 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
660 ft
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
¼ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 53% of Beech Bottom sits under tree canopy (heavier than most cities) and roughly 19% is impervious surface like pavement and rooftops. Both are folded into the per-place decay rate above. Heavier canopy pulls noise down faster with distance; impervious surfaces slow the drop.
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How Noise Is Distributed Across Beech Bottom
The bar chart below shows the share of Beech Bottom residents in each noise band. About 82% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 6% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Beech Bottom Compares
Beech Bottom sits the highest among the peer group. Below: how Beech Bottom's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with McKinleyville, Windsor Heights, Clearview, and Dallas.
Average noise level (dBA)
Beech Bottom's 53.9 dBA pop-weighted average is the highest among the peer group. West Virginia as a whole averages 47.7 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Beech Bottom because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 32.6% of Beech Bottom residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's more than any of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 28.0% of Beech Bottom's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a West Virginia average of 21.6% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Beech Bottom
Distance from highways matters more than the neighborhood name. Two homes in the same zip code can differ by 20 dBA if one sits 100 meters from River Rd and the other 500 meters away. The model captures this at 100-meter resolution, so noise exposure changes block by block.
Tree canopy can help reduce modeled noise exposure. Roughly 53% of Beech Bottom is under tree cover (heavier than most cities), and the dominant land cover is deciduous forest. Both are measured from federal USDA Forest Service and USGS satellite imagery at 30-meter resolution. Streets with 60% or higher canopy show 3 to 5 dBA lower noise than comparable streets with bare ground or pavement, which is why the per-place decay rate above already accounts for it.
Sources & Methodology
The BestNeighborhood noise model is calibrated against nearly one million federal ground-truth measurements across four states. Road noise is computed from segment-level federal traffic data and propagated outward using physics-based acoustic decay, with attenuation rates that depend on the surrounding land cover.
All inputs are published federal datasets. Block-level noise is computed by combining road, rail, and aviation sound sources in the energy domain, the same physics used in professional environmental noise assessments. Read the full methodology.
