Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 3
The social and economic
benefits of aviation
Robert Caves
I
NTRODUCTION
Airport expansion policies are now being driven by the need for sustainability, as
reflected in the UK government's recent consultation document (DETR, 2000a).
This implies a correct balance between environmental, social and economic goals.
There are many social and economic costs and benefits associated with airport expan-
sion, and they fall unequally on local, regional, national and international commu-
nities. A given factor may be a benefit to one community and a cost to another. The
communities impacted may be widely separated in space or may share the same
space. The impacts also have a time dimension: the impacts during construction are
of a different nature than those during operation, and the impacts during operation
change over time due to changing traffic patterns and changing impacts per unit of
traffic. The factors affecting communities close to an airport tend to be grouped
according to whether they are seen mainly as a cost or mainly as a benefit.
The cost impacts generated by aircraft and the associated ground traffic are usu-
ally from adverse environmental impacts: noise, air pollution, the ecological balance,
landscape, odour and groundwater contamination. There may also be many other
causes of local concern such as urbanization, safety, severance and road congestion.
Most have established metrics that are subject to criticism regarding their relevance.
In particular, noise in the community is measured or estimated using metrics that
result in poor predictions of the actual number and location of complaints, particu-
larly night noise and the associated sleep disturbance. Such metrics may also be poor
predictors of impacts on health; both they and criteria for assessing risk require fur-
ther work. It has been realized that the market does not provide an efficient valua-
tion of the costs of these externalities.
