PROBLEMÁTICA DEL CÁLCULO DEL IMPACTO A GRAN ESCALA DEL RUIDO DEL TRÁFICO SOBRE LA SALUD HUMANA

Abstract

Several difficulties arise in the inclusion of traffic noise as an impact category within the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. First of all, traffic noise -unlike other pollutants typically studied in LCA- is not a material emission. Furthermore, its evaluation is routinely performed locally (as noise reception values), with large scale impacts going largely unnoticed. The study of state-of-the-art vehicle noise emission models may improve our ability to accurately predict noise levels and their associated impacts upon human health, thereby overcoming the shortcomings in the interpretation of the results given by dated models. In this work, an explanation is provided of the simplifications and assumptions which allow us to relate the noise emission of a single vehicle to the noise level increment perceived by its potential receivers, thereby providing the basis for a large-scale noise impact assessment. Keywords: Noise, Road Traffic, LCA, model