Noise Barriers Effectiveness Evaluation and Preliminary Results of European Noise Directive Application in Spain

摘要

The Spanish legislation has experienced a great transformation during the last years in relation to the environmental noise, according to the transposition and implementation of the European Directive 2002/49/EC. The Spanish Environmental Noise Law 2003 37/2003 gives effect to EU Directive, relating to the assessment and management of environmental noise. This law was completed with two Regulations, first in 2005 and the second one recently in 2007, Especially the last Royal Decree 1367/2007 has fixed the objective levels of noise quality in the different acoustic protection areas and for the different acoustic transmitter. Following the Noise Law, Environment Noise Maps on main agglomerations, roads, railways and airports has been elaborated in a first step. Then in a second step action plans will lay out the main tasks to do in order to reduce the amount of population exposed to noise levels exceeding established limits. The main means to reduce affected population by noise due to roads and railways are noise reduction devices such as noise barriers. In the next years a great increase in the use of these means is expected. Guidelines and prototype projects have been carried out in the last years in order to assure a proper planning, manufacturing, installation and maintenance.