Chapter 3: Noise pollution

quantifying the intolerable

The public tends to perceive noise as "one of the major environmental problems", according to the European Environment Agency (EEA). Excessive noise can affect people in both physiological and psychological ways, interfering with rest and relaxation, conversation, enjoyment of radio and TV programmes or concentration at work. Noise adversely affects people's mental and physical wellbeing, and thus influences their behaviour and health. It can cause mental stress, and can lead to health problems such as muscle tension and muscle pain, and can even be a contributing factor to high blood pressure and the development of heart disease.

"Even though these impacts on human health have long been known, recent research shows that they arise at lower noise levels than was previously thought", says the EEA. However, there are considerable individual differences in sensitivity to noise, making it difficult to lay down limit values that will act as a guarantee against any damage to health.

Unsurprisingly, the government sees noise as one of the most serious remaining environmental problems in Norway, and among those affecting the largest number of people. About 1.7 million Norwegians, a third or more of the population, are exposed to excessively high noise levels outside their homes; almost half a million of these are annoyed or highly annoyed by noise. Some 200,000 have noise-related sleep problems.

The most important source of excessive noise by far is road traffic, which accounts for almost 80 per cent of noise annoyance, followed by aircraft, railways and industry. Other sources include construction activities, shooting ranges, military training areas and motor racing tracks, followed by occasional and/or relatively "minor" noise nuisances such as harbours, bus stations, trams, microlight aircraft, snowmobiles, leisure craft, lawn-mowers, chainsaws and numerous other noise-generating products.

Norway has developed a "noise annoyance index" (SPI) in an attempt to quantify the total level of annoyance for individual communities and to monitor progress towards national noise reduction targets. The latest target, introduced in 2008, aims for a 10 per cent reduction in noise annoyance from 1999 levels by 2020. For the most affected Norwegians, suffering 38 dB or higher indoor levels, these are to be 30 percent lower than 2005 levels by 2020.

In recent years, efforts to reduce noise have focused on measures such as facade insulation and noise screens for residential buildings that are exposed to the highest noise levels. The national targets for noise reduction will make it necessary to focus more on reducing noise at source, which may be both cheaper and more effective than noise mitigation.

Tax incentives and penalties, eco-labelling and public information campaigns can be useful policy instruments for achieving the target. Low-noise technology, for example for road surfaces, must be used more widely.

New residential buildings and buildings where noisy activities will take place must be planned and built so that they comply with noise limits laid down in the building regulations pursuant to the Planning and Building Act.

In addition, there are noise guidelines for specific sources of noise such as roads, aircraft, shooting ranges and industry. The guidelines set out a number of recommended noise limits that must be used as a basis for land-use planning and for dealing with specific cases. The county governor is the competent authority for noise-related issues within the scope of the Planning and Building Act. Pollution control regulations also lay down noise limits for existing activities, but these are less stringent than the planning limits, and the county governor remains the competent authority in this context.

NORTIM, GMTIM and REGTIM
One of the more interesting developments is the aircraft noise calculation program NORTIM (Norwegian Topography Integrated Model) developed by the SINTEF Group, the largest independent research organisation in Scandinavia, for the Norwegian Defence Construction Service and AVINOR (formerly Norwegian Air Traffic and Airport Management).

NORTIM is used to calculate aircraft noise in the vicinity of most Norwegian airports. The program enables the user to import traffic journal data, process the data, construct flight tracks, define multiple scenarios with a given traffic scaling, etc. The calculation results are presented as contours on a map. NORTIM can also do point calculations of the aircraft noise outside all buildings near the airport.

SINTEF has also developed two special versions of the program: GMTIM and REGTIM. The former automatically collects traffic data, flight tracks and flight profiles from the flight track and surveillance system at Gardermoen, Norway's main international airport, and processes the data with relatively little user input; the latter is designed to do simple calculations of aircraft noise in the vicinity of regional airports in Norway with a simplified user interface enabling the user to adjust a predefined data set.

A third or more of the population is exposed to excessively high noise levels....

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