Noise occurrence caused by the U.S. military facility presence in Okinawa and its influence on inhabited areas

摘要

The research deals with the noise occurrence caused by the American military facility presence in Okinawa and its influence on inhabited areas. In Okinawa, the area occupied by the U.S. military facility presence aggregates 11% of the total prefectural area. The 45 military facilities occupy a total area of 250.12 square kilometers spread out in 25 of the 53 cities, towns and villages of Okinawa. In comparison with the areas occupied by the military bases in the rest of Japan, the base occupied land in Okinawa is 25.3% second to the 34.4% occupied in Hokkaido. But the concentration of the regularly used facilities are based in Okinawa up to 74.6% of the total. 29% of these bases are located in central Okinawa and occupy 26.3% of the total land area of this region. Kadena air base, the largest in the pacific region and Futenma air base the largest in Japan are both located in this military occupied area. The noise emitted by the air base is way over the environmental noise pollution standards and seriously affects the quality of the basic daily life of the inhabitants in the areas surrounding the base. This noise research was conducted at a total of 52 points in the cities towns and villages of Okinawa prefecture. The data figures of the research conducted around the areas of Kadena and Futenma bases indicated that the WECPNL levels remained steady without much fluctuation.