Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the noise exposure of population around Split Airport

Abstract

Airports negatively affect the environment by generating annoying aircraft noise. In practice, negative noise effect due to constant increase of air traffic is being compensated for through improved approach and departure procedures as well as new methods of noise reduction, mainly at the noise source itself. The emergence of COVID-19 pandemic significantly reduced air traffic throughout the world, which had a positive effect on the noise exposure of the people living around airports. This research is analyzing the effect of the COVID-19 on the noise exposure of the population living around Split Airport. The analysis was conducted based on the comparison of the noise maps for the peak days of 2019 and 2020, created in the Integrated Noise Model. The estimated number of people highly annoyed during the day for the peak day of 2020 was reduced by 14.7% compared to 2019, while the estimated number of people highly sleep-disturbed decreased by 62.3%.