Evaluation of some health impact indices in two airports’ domain

Abstract

Airports are the one of major contributors to noise pollution in cities. As feasible transportation to the airports is desired, cities have been enlarged very close to airports since their establishment. In this paper, noise levels around Izmir Adnan Menderes Airport and Ankara Esenboga Airport were evaluated according to the European Noise Directive (END) and by using annoyance and sleep-disturbance indices. These airports are two of the biggest ones in Turkey and both have similar flight statistics. Hot spot analysis results were used for land use planning, assessment of noise effects on public health and determination of noise reduction measures to be used for Noise Action Plans implemented by local authorities. The percentages of people annoyed (% A), highly annoyed (% HA) and highly sleep disturbed (% HSD) were estimated to determine the effects of both airports’ noise on people's health. Hot spot scores of two airports were calculated and compared with each other, which were determined by using the annoyance, sleep disturbances and Building Prioritization Score (BPS) indices. Experimental studies on humans acutely exposed to noise at very high level show increases in blood pressure and heart rate as a result of which induce hearing impairment, hypertension and ischemic heart disease, annoyance, sleep disturbance can be induced. According to results of this study, the urbanization near the airport increases the noise reduction cost and public health problems.