Noise and Health in the Rotterdam Metropolitan Region

The Rotterdam Metropolitan Region (RMR) rd has the largest harbour in Europe and the 3 in the world and comprises more than 22.000 enterprises. In 2008 the Rotterdam Noise Map was drafted. Based on this map the number of annoyed, highly annoyed and sleep disturbed people was estimated. In the RMR 1,2 mio people are living. It delivers 8% of the GDP. The number of sleep disturbed people was also estimated. Only for traffic noise a 3% sleep disturbed people occurred. In the same time the Environmental Perception Survey was published. This field survey showed that the numbers of annoyed, highly annoyed and sleep disturbed differed a lot from those of the noise map according to END 2002/49/EC.
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 EPS END industry road aviation

Figure 4: Comparison EPS versus Noise Map END (%A) Figure 1: Rotterdam Noise Map 2008

The estimation was done according to the EU requirements. It was found that almost 15% of the citizens was annoyed by traffic noise and almost 3% by industry and nearly 1% by railway noise. See graph in figure 2.
16,0% 14,0% 12,0% 10,0% 8,0% 6,0% 4,0% 2,0% 0,0% 2007 industry road aviation rail

A comparison was done for percentage highly annoyed as well. See figure 5.
14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 EPS END industry road aviation

Figure 5: Comparison EPS versus Noise Map END (%HA)

Figure 2: Percentage annoyed people (END Map)

It was also done for sleep disturbance and the differences were remarkably. Up to 4 times differences were found. Conclusions Differences are found due to: - noise calculations (inaccuracies modelling, threshold too high > 55dB, etc.) - another scale and despite local circumstances (high % low income people, high % people with other ethnic entity) - questionnaire EPS left some room for interpretation, conversion 5-11 pts. scale - are Miedema (EU) curves up to date yet? Improvements are possible but differences certainly will remain! So, what to say to the confused authorities (politicians) and to the policy makers?

The percentage of highly annoyed people was also estimated, see figure 3.
16,0% 14,0% 12,0% 10,0% 8,0% 6,0% 4,0% 2,0% 0,0% 2007

% high annoyed
industry road aviation rail

Figure 3: Percentage of highly annoyed people

[henk.wolfert@dcmr.nl]