Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
nuisance and that this, in turn, declines with increasing affluence. As a result, levels
of disturbance that were 'acceptable' in the past will no longer be considered so in
the future.
This is of major significance to the air transport industry as disturbance or increas-
ing nuisance will lead to increased levels of community opposition and, in turn, will
act as a barrier to airport growth. This chapter links noise and capacity issues with
community and stakeholder concerns and goes on to outline recent regulatory devel-
opments that are likely to influence airport noise policies in the short to medium term.
A
IRPORT
NOISE
CAPACITY
CONSTRAINTS
The level of traffic an airport can handle during a particular period of time is depen-
dent upon a variety of factors, primarily:
•
the capacity of its infrastructure - including runways, taxi ways, aprons, termi-
nals and ground transport access;
•
the capacity of the air traffic management system that serves the airport; and
•
the skill with which the airport and the air traffic system is managed.
However, the disturbance caused by aircraft noise has the potential to further reduce
an airport's operating capacity due to the imposition of noise restrictions, such that
today there are many examples of airports throughout the world that are subject to
noise-related constraints. A number of major airports (eg Schiphol) have reached their
'noise capacity' before having made full use of their runway and terminal infrastructure
(ICAO, 1993). Others have failed to gain planning approval for further develop-
ment as a result of the noise implications of future traffic growth, despite the proven
demand. In the extreme case are examples of brand new airports (eg F J Strauss Air-
port in Munich and Hong Kong Airport) that have been constructed on greenfield
sites, partially in response to noise problems at previously existing sites.
A
IRCRAFT
NOISE
AND
ITS
EFFECTS
The physics of sound can be described in terms of changes in air pressure, wavelength
frequency, amplitude or purity (Sekuler and Blake, 1994; Veitch and Arkkelin, 1995).
However, while these describe how sound is transmitted through the air to the ear,
they do not measure the level of disturbance caused in response to hearing that sound.
Noise is generally defined as a sound that has an undesirable effect upon people (Ber-
glund and Lindvall, 1995). Prolonged exposure to high levels of noise has been shown
to cause serious psychological and physiological effects upon the human body, includ-
ing hearing impairment or loss and sleep deprivation leading to stress and immuno-
logical problems (Veitch and Arkkelin, 1995).
There is unequivocal evidence that the auditory system can be damaged by expo-
sure to extremely high levels of noise. However, despite considerable research into the
possible non-auditory health effects of noise, the results are often contradictory. The
broader World Health Organization (WHO) definition of health helps to resolve
