EPA - Ireland's Environment, An Integrated Assessment - 2020

Ireland’s Environment – An Integrated Assessment 2020 Excessive noise is reported (WHO, 2020) to: n seriously harm human health and interfere with people’s daily activities n disturb sleep and cause cardiovascular and psychophysiological effects and n reduce performance and provoke annoyance responses and changes in social behaviour. Long-term exposure to environmental noise from road traffic, railways, aircraft and industry contributes every year to about 48,000 new cases of heart disease and 12,000 premature deaths in Europe (EEA, 2020). Research is under way in Ireland on the health impacts of exposure to environmental noise in a national context. Meanwhile, environmental noise reduction measures complement the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals on Good Health and Wellbeing (Goal 3) and Sustainable Cities and Communities (Goal 11). 2. Assessment of Environmental Noise from Transport Sources in Ireland European legislation requires the development of strategic noise maps and action plans on a 5-year cycle. The European Union’s (EU’s) Environmental Noise Directive (END; 2002/49/EC) deals with environmental noise from major transport infrastructure including roads, railways and airports (EC, 2002). The END sets out a two-stage process for addressing environmental noise by requiring Member States to: n establish the scale of the noise problem by preparing ‘strategic noise maps’ for major roads, railways, airports, agglomerations and industry and n develop action plans to reduce the level of noise where necessary and to maintain environmental noise quality where it is good. Strategic Noise Maps Covering Transport Noise Sources Strategic noise maps show the predicted noise exposure in a given area resulting from transport noise sources. The EPA is the national authority for overseeing the implementation of the Environmental Noise Regulations 2018. 1 Responsibility for the preparation of the strategic noise maps lies with the designated noise mapping bodies. These include Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), the various local authorities, Irish Rail and the Dublin Airport Authority. The roles and responsibilities in terms of noise mapping in Ireland are outlined on the EPA website. 2 Only the larger transport noise sources are required to be modelled and mapped. The thresholds that apply to the noise mapping are as follows: major roads – > three million vehicle passages/annum; major railways – > 30,000 train passages/annum; major airports – > 50,000 air movements/annum; and major cities – agglomerations with > 100,000 inhabitants, which in Ireland includes the cities of Dublin, Cork and, from 2020, Limerick. Strategic noise maps show noise exposure levels. They are prepared using computer modelling techniques that use various types of source data to estimate noise levels, including traffic flow, types of road and rail, types of vehicles and vehicle speeds. The noise maps are presented in terms of two noise indicators, L den and L night , as described in Topic Box 4.1. Topic Box 4.1 Noise indicators L den is the day-evening-night long-term average noise indicator. It is ‘weighted’ to account for extra annoyance in the evening and night-time periods. The END defines an L den threshold of 55 dB for reporting on the numbers of people exposed. L night is the night-time long-term average noise indicator and is used in the assessment of sleep disturbance. An L night threshold of 50 dB is defined for reporting on the numbers of people exposed. These indicators are based on year-long averages for the day (07:00-19:00), evening (19:00-23:00) and night-time (23:00-07:00) periods. 1 The European Communities (Environmental Noise) Regulations 2018 (S.I. No. 549/2018) both revise and revoke the Environmental Noise Regulations 2006. See http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2018/si/549/made/en/print. 2 Noise mapping – round 3; http://www.epa.ie/monitoringassessment/noisemapping/ 86