A study of airport noise impact and strategies for its mitigation and exposure reduction

Aviation noise pollution in urban areas can be considered as a major problem and source of conflict between airport infrastructure and residents. Its effects could significantly limit the growth of aviation as well as affect public health, mainly when airports are located near residential areas. Noise control measures both at the source and at the receivers are often expensive and limited. Nevertheless, they represent the most viable solutions for contrasting this phenomenon due to the difficulty of finding suitable measures to reduce aircraft noise along its propagation path. This work is focused on the development, the assessment, and the management of mitigation actions regarding the noise action plan of Pisa’s “Galileo Galilei” International Airport. This airport has recently presented its noise action plan in order to give itself the possibility of expansion without incurring in air traffic limitations. The action plan includes both the construction of a runway link to increase the take-off run length and the introduction of a noise-abatement departure procedure. The effectiveness of these actions against noise pollution has been evaluated by means of noise numerical modelling. In particular, the noise impact produced by the airport and the related exposed population have been estimated by using the Integrated Noise Model (INM). New strategies to ensure an effective noise reduction as a response to the growing aircraft traffic have been proposed. Noise maps calculated for present and future scenarios, including those following the application of noise reduction measures, are shown. For many situations, people’s exposure and the percentages of highly annoyed and highly sleep-disturbed people have been determined also including military aircraft noise. Moreover, a novel methodology for managing airport noise in the closest urban areas based on the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) technology is presented. ADS-B helps to track the 3D-flight paths with high data resolution and then to verify both the effectiveness of the action plan and the compliance with its provisions. A penetration gate has been strategically set considering the departures towards the city. The vertical distribution of the traffic crossing the gate and the correlation between take-off conditions and noise-related events have been investigated in order to establish rules for penalties due to the lack of compliance with the action plan requirements. The relationships between the operational characteristics of flight departures and aircraft noise by means of a statistical approach have been identified. Principal Component Analysis and Multiple Linear Regression were performed in order to extrapolate a simplified predictive model at a specific point on the ground. The findings may be useful to point out the operational characteristics causing the noisiest aircraft flyovers. Consequently, scheduled flight departures could be re-organized by introducing departure-direction and departureprocedure restrictions in order to minimize noise impact on the urban areas. The results confirm that ADS-B system may be considered a smart tool providing cost-effective solutions for the airport noise management in urban areas and its sustainable development, particularly when the radar tracks are not available.