LA MARGINALIDAD DEL RUIDO ASOCIADO AL TRANSPORTE EN LA METODOLOGÍA DE ANÁLISIS DE CICLO DE VIDA

Abstract

The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is a comprehensive environmental impact assessment tool whose aim is to evaluate the most relevant environmental impacts of a product or service along its life cycle. However, LCA studies often fail to include some of the largest impacts of the product system under study. Such is the case of transport noise: despite being a major source of discomfort whose significance can be likened to that of other forms of environmental pollution, it is often neglected in LCA studies. In this study, the causes for the marginality of transport noise in LCA are analyzed. Most of these causes stem from the special characteristics of noise as a pollutant (not just traffic noise but also noise from any other source), which are briefly discussed. The clash of these peculiarities with the limitations of LCA is thought to have seriously hindered the inclusion of noise within LCA. The special characteristics of noise as a pollutant (site-dependency of impacts, human perception issues, non-linearity of impacts and limited availability of data) that have hindered the inclusion of noise within LCA appear to justify a specific treatment within the LCA framework to better accommodate the assessment of its impacts. Keywords: traffic noise; LCA; annoyance; environmental impact