Noise Levels in Caldwell County, TX | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
46 dBA
Average noise across Caldwell County
Quiet suburban street at night
3,779
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
11% of Caldwell County residents
100 dBA
Loudest residential point
Power saw
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Caldwell County 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 3,779 Caldwell County residents, or 10.7%, live above that level. By land area, 19.2% of Caldwell County is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Caldwell County residents, grouped by direction from the center of Caldwell County. Southern Caldwell County carries the highest population-weighted average; Eastern Caldwell County carries the lowest. Just 3% of residents in Eastern Caldwell County live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, a fifth of the share in Southern Caldwell County.
Eastern Caldwell County
40.5 dBA · Quiet
Soft rainfall
3% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Caldwell County
46.7 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
11% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Caldwell County
48.6 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
20% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Caldwell County
46.3 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office
7% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Caldwell County sounds about 75% louder than Eastern Caldwell County to the human ear, a 8.1 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 I-10 do you need to be?
I-10 produces an estimated 77 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 quiet suburban street at night.
At source
77 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
64 dBA
Busy restaurant
330 ft
57 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
660 ft
50 dBA
Quiet office
¼ mile
43 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
½ mile
36 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 8% of Caldwell County sits under tree canopy (lighter than most counties) and roughly 15% 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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Rail Noise
Active freight rail runs through parts of Caldwell County. For most blocks the rail-only contribution is small. Combined road-plus-rail noise rarely exceeds road noise on its own. The exceptions are the handful of blocks within roughly a quarter mile of the right-of-way during pass-through hours.
Use the Rail toggle on the map above to isolate rail's contribution from road and aviation.
Airport Noise
Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) sits north of Caldwell County. The U.S. Department of Transportation measures aviation noise around this airport directly, and the model uses those federal measurements rather than synthetic predictions.
Blocks under the approach and departure paths carry combined road-plus-aviation noise, with some exceeding 75 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Caldwell County, particularly to the south, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Caldwell County
The bar chart below shows the share of Caldwell County residents in each noise band. About 88% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 2% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Caldwell County Compares
Caldwell County sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Caldwell County's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Bastrop County, Gonzales County, Wilson County, and Kendall County.
Average noise level (dBA)
Caldwell County's 45.9 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Texas as a whole averages 50.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Caldwell County because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 10.7% of Caldwell County residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's in the middle of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 19.2% of Caldwell County's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Texas average of 22.8% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Caldwell County
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 I-10 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 8% of Caldwell County is under tree cover (lighter than most counties), and the dominant land cover is pasture / hay. 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.
Airport noise is directional. Austin-Bergstrom International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the north. Neighborhoods to the south of downtown show no measurable contribution from the airport.
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.
