Traffic noise pollution, health impacts and mitigation

Abstract

Environmental noise in urban metropolises, until recently, has been regarded as a nuisance or a fact of life, rather than a pollutant. Last decade saw improved awareness of quantifiable relationship between environmental noise and health. Further research is in progress in few specific areas as the findings are debatable, subjective and not necessarily conclusive. However, the community perception and response against noise pollution is gaining momentum. Affected communities are lobbying in an organised and informed manner for polluter to pay. Especially, with the release of “Burden of disease from environmental noise” in 2011 - a report compiled by WHO European Centre for Environmental Health, the quantitative risk assessment of environmental noise would become policy in many developed metropolises over the next decade. Therefore, it can be argued that need for environmental noise data acquisition and mapping could no longer be ignored. Environmental noise is defined as noise emissions from all sources other than industrial and manufacturing sectors. Current solutions of noise amelioration are not well co-ordinated and reactive in nature. Among all the environmental noise pollutants, within an urban setting, the traffic noise is the most common. This paper discusses, conceptually, the developments in this field including measurement and mitigation. Paper further emphasises the importance of integrated noise management (INM) strategies and collective decision frameworks facilitating effectiveness in mitigation.