Progress on environmental noise policies from 2008-2013 in Asia and the world

摘要

This paper provides a review of international progress on environmental noise mitigation policies and strategies, best practices and guidelines for environmental noise management. A considerable amount of relevant documents in many countries on these topics were published in the last five years. Much of this progress was made in the European Union and the World Health Organization, although other areas of the world demonstrated a continuing commitment to improvement on these issues, especially in the United States, Japan and Vietnam. These topics are particularly important because they embody the transfer into policies and legislation of expert work on the effects of noise exposure. In addition they address the vital area of the benefits of noise abatement. The latter focus area includes topics such as economic costs of environmental noise abatement and the benefits of adequate and affordable environmental noise mitigation policies in terms of avoided health and other costs, which is crucial for governments to implement strategies and policies for environmental noise management.