Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
One of the restrictions in performing individual risk assessments for airports is that
such analyses may not fully address the public concerns raised by major accidents.
From a societal risk perspective, the disaster potential posed through air traffic risk is
substantial. However, the economic importance of airports is often seen by govern-
ments as outweighing societal risk, and these risks are usually accepted, although it
is appreciated that there may be further safety measures that could be adopted even
though not directly cost beneficial.
In conclusion, while the techniques used to calculate third-party risks have
improved greatly since 1990, they are still prone to many uncertainties, such as the
high growth rate of the aviation industry. Further improvements are still likely to be
necessary to keep risk models up to par with the political challenges posed by the
expected growth in aviation.
Conclusions on community health
The placement of airports in urban areas will, by necessity, involve environmental
stresses on the local community. The clearly established, common stress indicators
are high noise, frequent annoyance and sleep disturbance; poor air quality; and
increased third-party risk. While studies have often highlighted these community
issues, the consequent health problems must still be fully quantified. For example,
however plausible the sequence of cause and effect seems theoretically, it has proved
very difficult to demonstrate, objectively, physical or mental health impairment due
to aircraft noise. In particular, those groups of the community who are more vulner-
able to the stresses associated with the operation of the airport - particularly the eld-
erly, chronically ill and children - need to be paid particular attention to in future
studies.
For both the present operation and future development of airports, the health
risks associated with their operations should be subjected on a regular basis to a fully
integrated health-risk assessment. Airports should consider taking measures to reduce
the negative impacts of environmental stresses, such as noise and air pollution, through
greater integration of spatial planning policies, such as local transport infrastructure
and land use. The integration of health risk assessments into airport operations still
needs further study. Both airports and the local community would benefit from bet-
ter relations if such assessments were planned and performed in an open and trans-
parent manner.
C
ONCLUSIONS
Although this chapter has focused upon the negative aspects of the health impacts of
aviation, it should not be forgotten that despite attracting more media attention, air
travel is, historically, in terms of mortality and traumatic injury of passengers, far
safer than road per kilometre travelled and has considerable benefits. The obvious
positive aspects of air travel are its speed and directness, which facilitate economy of
time and convenience for business and vacation travel. The economic advantages of
an airport to the local economy, particularly in terms of employment and the
