Environmental impact of noise from mobile outdoor equipment
conference paper
As part of an evaluation study of European Directive 2000/14/EC relating to the noise emission by equipment for use outdoors, an environmental impact assessment was required to investigate the need for new or tighter noise limits. In contrast to other environmental noise sources, the operating location of outdoor machines is not fixed. As conventional environmental noise mapping could not be used for this purpose, a specially adapted environmental indicator was developed. This indicator takes account of the following factors: typical average sound power level of the machine, sound character (tonal / impulsive / intermittent), day/night operation, typical areas of use, annual duration of operation and numbers of equipment in use in Europe. The numbers of people affected were assessed by assuming population densities typical for the areas of use and by counting the numbers of affected inhabitants within each 5 dB wide noise impact contour of a noise map. This resulted in distributions of the numbers of exposed inhabitants as a function of noise impact classes that were characteristic of the different types of environment (urban, suburban, rural etc.). The newly developed environmental indicator is a relatively simple quantity taking all relevant factors of noise impact and annoyance into account.
TNO Identifier
470814
ISSN
22265147
Source title
7th European Conference on Noise Control, EURONOISE 2008 and Acoustics '08, 29 June - 4 July 2008, Paris, France
Pages
271-276
Files
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