Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

64 Chapter 3: Environmental Noise Figure 3.4  Illustrative population exposure to road traffic noise at night (L night ) for Limerick city agglomeration using data from the environmental noise maps, available on gis.epa.ie/EPAMaps/ (June 2024) Assessment of harmful effects from transport noise Annex III of the END describes the methods for assessing the harmful effects caused by long-term exposure to specific noise sources. The methods include dose-effect relationships for a set of health end points such as cardiovascular disease, annoyance and sleep disturbance. These dose-effect relationships in the revised Annex III are based on a scientific review of the health effects, as contained in the WHO Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region . In 2021, Ireland transposed the revised Directive (EU) 2020/367, which amended Annex III to the END, through the Environmental Communities (Environmental Noise) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 (S.I. No. 663/2021). Preliminary data from the Annex III assessment, available for round 4 noise action plans, provide statistical information on the effects of exposure to the harmful effects of environmental noise on representative populations. The harmful effects that were assessed and reported on were the: ■ number of people who were highly annoyed by noise from roads, railways and aircraft ■ number of people who were highly sleep disturbed by noise from roads, railways and aircraft ■ incidence of ischaemic heart disease caused by exposure to noise from roads. When combined with the statistical analysis of harmful effects, the preliminary mapping results categorised around 8% of the urban populations in Dublin, Cork and Limerick as highly annoyed due to their exposure to road traffic noise and approximately 2% as highly sleep disturbed (Table 3.3). Within the areas mapped alongside major roads outside the agglomerations, approximately 4.6% of the population were highly annoyed and an estimated 1.4% were highly sleep disturbed.