A wireless acoustic sensor network for the sound/acoustic monitoring of areas of environmental interest, and the automated generation of multi-level sound maps for environmental assessment has been recently proposed. This contribution focuses on the design considerations of such a network, and especially on the relation of specific performance factors, like the supported event sensing frequency, and density of the wireless nodes, with node operational parameters, like the required communication rate, data compression, local data storage and power autonomy. A simulation-based analysis provides useful information for the relation between competing design factors; this information can be employed for the selection of the hardware architecture on network and on node level, but also for the decision on the distribution of the processing effort between the local and the central processing units. Copyright © 2015 American Scientific Publishers All rights reserved.