Some challenges in developing community noise policy

Abstract

There are a number of measures of success for environmental noise policy. For the regulatory or enforcement agency the measure of success is the lack of (or the reduction in) complaints about the noise in the area. This is a clearly quantifiable measure. For those responsible for the source of the noise a successful environmental policy is one that has clear and specific criteria for compliance which can be met in a cost effective manner. Again this is a quantifiable assessment. For the community the measure of success is satisfaction with the aural environment. Such satisfaction is a subjective measure. When establishing a noise policy the regulatory agency must match an understanding and knowledge of the community expectations with a quantifiable measure of noise. This measure then becomes the basis for the implementation of amelioration measures for the noise generator as well as the mechanism for the enforcement agency to verify compliance. Measuring the noise levels in the community has become relatively easy with modern instrumentation. Establishing the appropriate criteria remain the major challenges and will be discussed in this paper.