Abstract
This study aimed at investigating aircraft noise exposure levels, their annoyance, and potential health effects among communities living within airport catchment areas during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both field measurements and an online survey approach were used to investigate aircraft noise exposure levels, annoyance, and general health effects among residents living near Muscat International Airport (MCT) in Muscat, Oman, amid the COVID-19 period. The study found a drastic decline in aircraft noise levels due to the introduction of COVID-19 intervention measures such as lockdowns, social distancing, and closure of airports. In June 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, average daily aircraft noise levels of LAeq (39.9 dB(A)) and Lmax (49.7 dB(A)) was observed compared to the previous year (April–May 2019) of 58.5 and 76.8 dB(A), indicating aircraft noise reductions level of 32% and 35%, respectively. The results of the online social survey among 187 participants showed that most (58.8%) of the respondents did not feel that the level of noise produced by aircraft causes annoyance. During the day, the vast majority of the interviewees did not complain of any annoyance during the morning (45.5%), afternoon (39.6%), and evening (31%) with only < 4% of residents have reported a very high degree of annoyance of during COVID-19 pandemic period. Very few people (17%) did complain of experiencing general health problems while 29% did not know of any potential health effects that could be attributed to aircraft noise exposures. Aircraft noise annoyance complaints among the As-Seeb residents during the pre-COVID-19 pandemic periods were reported to be extremely high reaching about 84% compared to 41% during this current COVID-19 pandemic period. These findings support the need to develop future sustainable noise mitigation policies in order to help reduce noise exposures and improve human health during post-COVID-19 pandemic periods.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11356-021-17514-2.
Highlights
The health and economic impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic have been exacerbated mainly due to the introduction of stringent lockdown measures by several countries which have affected the global business cycles (Guan et al 2020; Ozili and Arun 2020)
These results clearly showed that the COVID19 pandemic has caused a drastic decline in aircraft noise levels in the study area
This study aimed at assessing aircraft noise exposure levels, annoyance, and potential health effects among residents living in close proximity to Muscat International Airport (MCT) during the COVID-19 pandemic period
Summary
The health and economic impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic have been exacerbated mainly due to the introduction of stringent lockdown measures by several countries which have affected the global business cycles (Guan et al 2020; Ozili and Arun 2020). It is widely known that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the aviation industry due to the closure of several airports across the world. This has greatly affected the mobility of many travelers and has caused an economic. The COVID-19 pandemic measures especially the closure of airports have led to a huge reduction in aircraft noise pollution levels among populations living closer to airport areas (Iacus et al 2020a; Suau-Sanchez et al 2020). There have been situations of increased in symptoms of heart diseases and the incidence of stroke among people living closer to airports in many European countries following long-term airport noise exposures (Floud et al 2013)
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