State of the art of noise mapping in Europe

December 2005 - Access the full report

The Directive 2002/49/EC on the assessment and management of environmental noise (END) requests the competent authorities in the Member States to produce noise maps of the main agglomerations before the 18th of July 2007.

Examples of how municipalities, regions and Member States have produced noise maps in the past and how they are adapting to the new requirements of the END are gathered in the present report. This information has been provided on a voluntary basis from various noise-mapping experts in a selected number of case study cities, regions and countries in Europe and has also been collected from information published on the web.

Focus is given to selected aspects of the noise mapping process: collection of noise emission, noise propagation and noise immission data, calculation method used, maps and indicators produced and, finally, main problems encountered and lessons learnt from the experience.