Airport Noise Pollution

Note to the student from the writer: These articles are all available from the database ProQuest. Your college or university or public library will have it. The Dept. of Commerce article is online.

Airport noise significantly affects millions of people in the United States and around the world. In a great number of instances, aircraft noise simply merges into the urban din, mixing with a cacophony of buses, trucks, motorcycles, cars, and construction noise. However, in locations near airports and plane flight patterns, aircraft noise becomes more of a concern. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss the problem of airport noise pollution from the perspective of environmental studies with special attention to concerns of human response to noise, criteria for land use control, and effects on real estate value.

Airport noise can be dangerous. Airplanes generate as much sound as 150 decibels at takeoff, noise that is 20 decibels louder than a rock concert and 10 decibels louder than a gunshot (Stewart, 2001, p.29). This is a significant amount of noise, a disturbance that dramatically affects people's lives. One research study reveals that children whose schools are near airports score lower on their achievement tests than those who are further away, and when children are moved

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person's perception. If a family has bought a home in the suburbs or in a rural area, they expect it to be quiet. Following are two illustrating U.S. Department of Commerce figures from their publication Aviation Noise Effects (1985, p.21).
These figures show that as the decibel level gets higher than 75, a much larger percentage of the people become annoyed and uncomfortable. As mentioned in earlier paragraphs, the controls are greater in Europe. In recent years, Great Britain had a long delay in receiving approval for a new Terminal 5 at Heathrow because of strict conditions intended to mediate the political conflict between economic growth and environmental protection that tied up the proposal since 1990 (Mann, 2001, p. 54). The UK government has imposed limits on Heathrow's annual flight traffic, night flights, and the amount of square miles in which the higher decibel levels will be tolerated. A capacity of 90 million passengers is expected once the new terminal is built. This will, of course, increase ground traffic and the car pollution that brings. As in the U.S., and elsewhere in Europe, the UK is concerned about the environmental impact and the opposition among residents who live airports under flig
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Approximate Word count = 2391
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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