Month: March 2015

Categories
Asia Noise News

CM inaugurates five Norsonic noise monitoring terminals

Bihar State Pollution Control Board (BSPCB) on Thursday unveiled five noise monitoring terminals at different locations in the city to collect and maintain data of sound levels in the state. CM Nitish Kumar inaugurated the terminals.

Bihar is the first state in the country to fund the establishment of such terminals. The data collected by these terminals will be stored in the board’s server, said a BSPCB official. The five terminals are located at Beltron Bhavan, planetarium, Patliputra Industrial Area, Patna Junction roundabout and PMCH campus. He also laid the foundation of the six-storey headquarters cum central laboratory of the BSPCB in the state capital.

“Despite efforts being made by the state government, it seems very difficult to maintain the flow of the Ganga as it is being ruined by pollution. The river enters the state near Buxar with 400 cumec water but it leaves the state with 1,400 cumec. The state’s main concern is the sand and silt that obstruct the flow of the river in its riverine plain,” the CM said. He also directed the engineers concerned to ensure that the upcoming development projects in the state are not in conflict with the environment.

The CM directed the departments concerned to create public awareness about the need of environment-friendly approach for a better tomorrow. Emphasizing on afforestation and sustainable development, Nitish said the JD(U) has made it compulsory for every political activist joining the party to plant a tree. The party’s drive has contributed a lion’s share in the increase of state forest cover from 9% to 10.3%. The state government aims to achieve 15% forest cover target by 2017, he added.

BSPCB chairman Chandra Bhushan Singh said the board would make operational three ambient air monitoring stations in the state next month. The state will be third in the country after Delhi and UP to have three such monitoring systems, he added.

Member secretary, ADRI, Shaibal Gupta, Bihar Industries Association president Arun Agrawal, Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) director Dr Arun Kumar and Mahavir Cancer Sansthan director Dr J K Singh were prominent among those who were present on the occasion.

Categories
Asia Noise News

Airport residents demand noise payout

Online news: Bangkok post

Prime Minister Yingluck has been asked to speed up the long-delayed compensation payment process to 30-40 communities affected by noise pollution from Suvarnabhumi International Airport

The residents submitted their letter of request through Airports of Thailand (AoT). They said compensation was promised under a cabinet resolution passed in 2006, but has not been forthcoming.

The group, led by Areeya Pomhathammakit, complained it has been more than six years since the Transport Ministry promised them compensation they were entitled to, under the Noise Exposure Forecast (NEF), so they could buy new homes.

Their letter asks the prime minister to set a clear timeframe for compensation payments.

They also asked that AoT members to be excluded from the decision, citing conflict of interest which could lead to injustice and further delays in payments.

The asked the cabinet to approve payment of compensation for houses affected by noise pollution in the areas outlined in the NEF at 460,000 baht each for house improvement, without having to go through a price assessment process.

They asked that the prime minister setup a committee to help with the assessment of properties in cases that the residents want to relocate and sell their house and land to the AoT.

Deputy Interior Minister Pracha Prasopdee, in his capacity as Samut Sakhon MP, said he is co-ordinating with Transport Minister Chatchart Sithipan to present their case to Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong to be forwarded to the cabinet soon.

Categories
Asia Noise News

Ban on noisy stalls at Red Cross Fair

Vendors at this year’s Red Cross Fair around the Royal Plaza have been told to keep the noise down by the Pollution Control Department.

People using speakers to promote their goods and services must ensure the volume level is no more than 82 decibels, which is regarded as safe, the department has said.

The decision to restrict noise was made by the Red Cross Fair committee, Wichien Jungrungruang, head of the Pollution Control Department, said.

Those who break the new rule will be ordered to switch off their speakers or face losing the deposits they paid for their pitches.

According to the department, at last year’s event noise levels at 108 stalls, or about 71% of the total, exceeded 82 decibels.

Mr Wichien said a survey revealed just 1% of people said they were attracted to stalls because of loud noise. About 65% said they were attracted by special promotions.

This year’s Red Cross Fair runs from March 29 to April 6 and traffic in the area will be closed during that period.

From: bangkokpost

Categories
Asia Noise News

Traffic noise driving songbirds to the limit in cities By Mark Kinver

By Mark Kinver
Environment reporter, BBC News

The rising level of noise in urban areas may be preventing some species of songbirds from setting up home in developed areas, a study has concluded.

Canadian researchers found that noisy surroundings masked the lower frequencies of bird songs, affecting the way some species communicated.

Unable to hear all elements of a song, females could perceive singing males as ill-suited mates, they added.

The findings have been published in the Global Change Biology journal.

“There has been a growing interest in preserving or increasing the biodiversity of songbirds in urban areas,” explained co-author Darren Proppe.

“At the same time we know that these areas have pretty high levels of anthropogenic noise.

Dr Proppe, now based at Calvin College, US, but carried out the study while based at the University of Alberta, added: “We sometimes find areas within cities that have what seems like suitable habitat, yet we get lower diversity (of songbirds).

“So we wanted to investigate the hypothesis that there was link between bird diversity and noise levels.”

City bird limits

In order to do this, the team surveyed species at 113 sites in natural areas within the city of Edmonton.

Noisy but otherwise suitable habitats could be overlooked by songbirds
“What we found was that the number of species we had at each location tended to be lower when noise levels were higher,” Dr Proppe observed.

“The decrease in species richness was one of the study’s major findings.”

He said that the study also focused on seven species that did inhabit the area to see if their abundance was affected as the urban noise increased.

The species that were selected met a number of criteria, including online gambeling: relatively common across the study area; forest or forest-edge dwelling; some elements of the species’ songs overlapped by the dominant frequencies of road noise.

“What we found is that three of the species did have lower abundances in locations that were noisier,” Dr Proppe explained.

He added that the team did find that the presence of lower frequency elements in a song was predictive of whether a species’ abundance would be affected by noise.

“This potentially could be down to the fact that those lower frequencies could be overlapped by the dominant frequencies of road noise, which also tend to be fairly low, resulting in a masking of communication between birds.

“We certainly know that birdsong and the perception of songs by females for mate selection, so in the paper we did speculate that maybe this was a mechanism these observed declines were occurring.”

He suggested that females may perceive the song as abnormal if they could not hear the lower frequencies and, over a period of time, this could have a potential impact on the abundance of the species as if adults were not pairing and mating then the number of offspring would decrease as a result

Categories
Asia Noise News

Bob Hope Airport noise program to be reduced in size

Residents living near Bob Hope Airport who have been waiting to take advantage of a federally funded residential soundproofing program shouldn’t wait any longer.

After more than a decade and a half of installing new windows and doors in homes surrounding the airport, the eligible area for the soundproofing program is going to shrink, airport officials said during a Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority meeting on Monday.

Due to quieter aircraft and fewer flights in general, the airport is projecting a much smaller noise-impact zone over the next five years — and that projection is used by the Federal Aviation Administration to determine which homeowners qualify for soundproofing projects.

“[The program] is going to remain to the extent that the eligibility area is there, but that area is going to be much smaller,” Mark Hardyment, director of environmental programs at the airport, said after the meeting. “(Residents) need to contact me immediately.”

There are 4,642 single-family homes and apartments in the existing noise-impact area, airport officials said. However, apartments are no longer eligible for the program.

The owners of 1,880 eligible dwellings have either not participated or expressed interest, despite mailings and personal visits, officials said.

Hardyment said that the airport has submitted to the FAA a draft of a so-called Part 150 study, which projects the airport’s noise impact until 2017 using sophisticated computer models.

Once FAA officials approve the study, the new noise-impact zone will take effect.

The reduction of the zone reflects the airport’s success in mitigating noise. In the airport’s initial Part 150 study in 1988, 1,138 acres were found to be impacted, and 26%, or 303 of them, were exposed to noise greater than the FAA threshold and therefore qualified for soundproofing.

In the 2012 study, 688 acres were found to be impacted. Of those, only 10.3 acres, or less than 2%, were still above the threshold.

Hardyment said the new study’s projections will likely be approved by the FAA in the next two to three months, but the soundproofing program will continue for some time after that.

“FAA has made it clear to me that they would anticipate there’s a transition,” Hardyment said. “It’s not going to be as soon as they send me back the exposure map. It’s not like a guillotine or a knife-drop.”

About $4.1 million remains for the program.

That’s enough funding to complete soundproofing improvements on the 33 homes currently signed up and to accommodate up to 60 additional homes, according to Hardyment.

Thailand