A Review of Non-Acoustic Measures to Handle Community Response to Noise around Airports

Asensio, C.; Gasco, L.; de Arcas, G.

A Review of Non-Acoustic Measures to Handle Community Response to Noise around Airports

2017

Asensio, C. | Gasco, L. | de Arcas, G.

It seems obvious that the noise levels in local communities surrounding airports influences the level of acceptance of an airport. What is not so evident is the effect of non-acoustic factors that increase the societal rejection, like the lack of sensitivity and empathy from the authorities and airport managers, the lack of trust in them, the lack of information and transparency, the perception of being excluded from the decision making and so on. Complementary to the traditional strategies based on the reduction of noise exposure, a community engagement and involvement approach brings new possibilities to manage noise around airports, trying to exploit the non-acoustic factors that have negatively affected the community response. Building trust among the stakeholders is a key factor in this strategy, and it must be based on a long-term, honest, and transparent two-way communication. In the last decade, the huge growth of the information and communication technologies has opened new opportunities that the aviation organizations and stakeholders are starting to explore in depth trying to reduce the degree of rejection of the airport, which may compromise the utilization of existing and future infrastructure. In this review, we make a short introduction on aircraft noise health effects, to focus annoyance and the influence that non-acoustic factors on it. Then, we describe the basis of community engagement as a parallel approach to mitigate noise issues around airports, setting the focus on the noise metrics and the involvement techniques that must be implemented to engage the community.

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