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Land use policy in the vicinity of airports: Analysis and lessons learned from the Brazilian situation
Land Use Policy 90 (2020) 104314
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Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol
Land use policy in the vicinity of airports: Analysis and lessons learned from the Brazilian situation
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Bruno Arantes Caldeira da Silva, Gustavo Sobreiro Santos, Rogeria de Arantes Gomes* Aeronautics Institute of Technology, Praça Marechal Eduardo Gomes, 50, São José dos Campos - SP, 12228-900, Brazil
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Noise zoning Aircraft noise Land use restrictions
Aircraft noise is one of the main environmental impacts associated with airports operation. Evidence suggests that sensitivity to aircraft noise is increasing. Besides the expected growth in air transportation, conflicts between airports and communities living in its surroundings are expected to increase also if not action is taken. Land-use regulation is one of the tools used to mitigate these impacts and allow the evolution of Civil Aviation minimizing adverse reactions from people living in airport surroundings. Traditionally, this regulation is done by defining land-use restrictions around airports, based on noise contours. However, these restrictions are often not enforced in practice because of cost-related issues and lack of coordination between the various stakeholders involved. Even when they are correctly implemented, they have not avoided noise-related conflicts in many cases, which indicates possible limitations of this approach. This article intends to suggest possible improvements to the process of land-use planning around airports. For that, the framework for land-use policy definitions around Brazilian airports will be used as a case study, from which are drawn recommendations and lessonslearned that may be generally applicable to other countries
1. Introduction
sensitivity to aircraft noise has been increasing (Babisch, 2009; Schreckenberg et al., 2016). Additionally, it is expected that air transport will increase at a rate of 4.5% per year up to 2042, meaning that air transport operations will double by 2032 (ICAO, 2016). These factors indicate that noise-related conflicts around airports may increase in the future. This scenario highlights the importance of land-use planning to reduce the number of people exposed to significant noise levels from aircraft, since it can direct incompatible uses such as residences to areas away from the airport, thus reducing the reactions of residents to the airport operation and allowing the airport to be used at its full capacity and efficiency, even at night periods, for example. The basic approach currently in use for land-use planning around airports is based on the definition of restricted areas around airports, where land uses incompatible with high noise levels are not allowed. However, in many cases such restrictions are not properly enforced (Li et al., 2007). Additionally, in many cases even the correct implementation of restrictions has not been sufficient to avoid aircraft noise conflicts, or to predict the areas where the noise levels are high enough to trigger community reactions (ACRP, 2009). Brazil has an area of 8,515,770 km2, just slightly smaller than the USA. It is the largest country in South America and in the Southern Hemisphere, shares common boundaries with every South American
Adequate land-use planning around airports is of imperative importance, mainly because of two aspects: high buildings can interfere with the air traffic, causing safety risks to the airport operation, and environmental impacts related to the airport operation can make the areas around the airport unsuitable for certain land uses. Among the environmental impacts caused by airports, aircraft noise is the main driver of reactions and opposition in many world airports (Therivel and Barren, 1990). This has led the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to propose a "Balanced Approach" to manage aircraft noise issues at individual airports (ICAO, 2008). It is based on four elements, which are recommended to be adopted in a specific order: reduction of noise at source, land-use planning and management, noise abatement operational procedures and operating restrictions. However, the implementation of noise reduction technologies in aircraft is facing an increasing conflict with fuel burn and CO2 emissions constraints (Graham et al., 2014). Operational procedures can be effective in many cases but are not always sufficient or feasible to prevent and reduce aircraft noise annoyance (Basner et al., 2017). Operational restrictions can be very effective, but are also a drastic measure and, according to ICAO’s Balanced Approach, should only be implemented as a last resource. Some studies also indicate that ⁎
Corresponding author at: Aeronautics Institute of Technology, Air Transportation Department, São José dos Campos, Sp, Brazil. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (B.A.C. da Silva), [email protected] (G.S. Santos), [email protected] (R.d.A. Gomes).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104314 Received 29 March 2016; Received in revised form 5 September 2019; Accepted 15 October 2019 Available online 11 November 2019 0264-8377/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Fig. 1. Land use around Guarulhos Airport, 1980 and 2015.
problems, and propose improvements based on the lessons learned in the Brazilian situation, which may be generally applicable to other countries that experience the same difficulties related to aircraft noise.
country except Chile and Ecuador. Brazil has 4.093 airfields, of which 698 have paved runways, losing only to the United States (13,513 airfields, which 5054 with paved runways). The territorial extension of Brazil allows the existence of different scenarios of population density, socio economic levels, and land use characteristics around airports. These scenarios encompass most of the problems associated with land-use planning around airports, which can be generalized for other countries situations. Land-use restrictions related to airport noise have been in force in Brazil since the early 1980s, but did not succeed in accomplishing compatible land use at many important airports. One example of this situation is observed in Guarulhos Airport (SBGR), the busiest airport in Brazil. Fig. 1 depicts the surroundings of Guarulhos airport (SBGR) in 1980 and in 2015, when it was the busiest airport in Brazil. The limits of the official noise plan for this airport, published in 1984, are illustrated for the 2015 situation. Fig. 1 shows that the Noise Plan published in 1984 was not effective in hindering the construction of residences around the airport. Such situation happens often in other world airports, as the economic activity fostered by an airport generally attracts residential developments. Li et al (2007) shows that land-use restrictions were not properly implemented in three important airports in the United States (Denver, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando). In the United Kingdom, the relevant policy and regulatory schemes put in place to stop such attraction did not avoid the increase in the number of people living in the vicinity of five UK airports (Airports Commission, 2013). To address that, the Heathrow airport administration includes, in its noise strategy, specific initiatives to encourage the Government to restrict noise sensitive development in high noise areas (Heathrow, 2018). Even when the land-use restrictions were observed, they did not avoid noise-related conflicts at many important airports in Brazil. As an example, Fig. 2 shows the official Noise Zoning published in 1984 for Santos Dumont Airport (SBRJ), in Rio de Janeiro-Brazil. Fig. 2 shows that the noise restricted areas around Santos Dumont airport did not encompass any populated area. This situation led to the wrong conclusion that other noise mitigation strategies were not needed. But noise-related conflicts are being observed at this airport and are hindering the expansion of this airport’s operations (Folha de Sao Paulo, 2019). A similar example can be observed in Washington-Dulles airport (IAD), which is considered an example of land use planning around airports in the United States. The local authorities have successfully applied Potential Noise Contours recommended by the airport as a tool for effective land use planning and zoning for long-term compatibility with IAD (MWAA, 2018). However, this did not avoid noise-related issues caused by recent operational changes at the airport (Washington Post, 2016). These examples show that the simple observance of noise-restricted areas is not sufficient to avoid noise related issues, and therefore other land use planning strategies are needed beyond the traditional noise zoning. This work intends to depict the overall framework of land-use planning for noise around Brazilian airports, discuss its advantages and
2. Brazilian regulatory framework for land-use around airports 2.1. Civil aviation regulations Land use restrictions around Brazilian airports have existed since 1966, when a “Protection Zone Plan” around airports was defined to avoid the construction of high buildings that could interfere with air traffic. Specific restrictions over noise were included in the early 1980s by means of a “Noise Zone Plan” (Plano de Zoneamento de Ruído-PZR) that defined areas around aerodromes subject to land use restrictions with the objective of avoiding the construction of buildings incompatible with the noise levels generated by the operation of aerodromes. A specific noise metric was used to define noise compatibility: the IPR (Índice Ponderado de Ruído – Noise Weighted Index). Areas with IPR lower than 53 were considered to be adequate for any use, some land-use restrictions were defined for IPR values between 53 and 60, and increased restrictions would be necessary for IPR above 60. The responsibility for defining these areas was given to the Federal Executive Power, without defining a specific institution, and the practical implementation became the responsibility of Local Municipalities Administrations where the aerodromes were located. There was also the provision for compensatory payments in the cases where the land-use restrictions require the removal of buildings, or forbid new construction. Using this metric and criteria, PZRs were defined for 61 national airports, which encompassed the most important airports operating at that time in Brazil. Examples of these early-defined PZRs are shown in Fig. 3: In 1986, some subtle changes were incorporated in the regulations: the practical implementation of the Noise Plans was generically imposed over the “Administrations” instead of the “Local Municipalities Administrations” specified before. These differences may be explained by reference to the political context at the time (transition from a Military Dictatorship to a Democratic Rule), since it was not clear how the responsibilities of the Central government would be transferred to the new institutions in the Democratic scenario. As a result from this transition from dictatorship to democracy, Brazilian Civil Aviation matters were handled by a military department until the year 2005, when ANAC (Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil – Civil Aviation National Agency) was created. ANAC was empowered to regulate almost all aspects of Civil Aviation, only excluding Air Traffic control and Accidents Investigation, which remain a Brazilian Air Force responsibility to the moment. More recently, in 2011, ANAC developed its own Land-use regulation for Noise around aerodromes: the RBAC 161 (Regulamento Brasileiro da Aviação Civil – Brazilian Civil Aviation Regulation). This regulation adopted a new metric to be used in the Noise Plans: the LDN (Day-Night Average Sound Level), and the reference value of 65 LDN as acceptable to all land uses. These definitions were based on the 2
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Fig. 2. Noise restricted areas around Santos Dumont Airport in 1984.
was ruled by centralized military government, when the decisions were made with fewer concerns over general public participation, or responsibility sharing over several entities. The process of redemocratization in Brazil had just ended in 1988, with the promulgation of a new Civilian Constitution. However, the hand-over of powers to the civil authorities was completed in an abrupt way, and Civil Aviation matters remained being ruled by the Military, in a concentrative model of governance with little people participation, until very recently, when ANAC was created in 2005. This situation may have created a transitional period when the necessary knowledge was not entirely available to local governments that received the responsibilities for land-use enforcement. Having this scenario in mind, this section lists some issues existing in the Brazilian Regulatory framework for noise planning around airports that may have contributed to the existence of noise-related problems in many airports. For that, a division is made in the two main issues identified: the lack of enforcement of land-use restrictions, and the issues with the current approach for defining noise-related restrictions.
American regulation of the subject (14 CFR Part 150). 2.2. Environmental licensing regulations Regulations over environmental licensing of economic activities (which includes Airports) were also developed in Brazil throughout the last decades, in parallel with the civil aviation regulations for land-use around airports. In 1986, CONAMA (Conselho Nacional de Meio Ambiente - National Environmental Council defined the need for an Environmental Impact Assessment of all the “Activities that change the environment”. Concerning noise aspects, CONAMA ruled that general Technical Standards NBR 10.151 and NBR 10.152 must be used to evaluate noise impacts in the Environmental Licensing process. These standards define noise compatibility levels for residential areas in terms of the noise metrics LAeqD (50 dB) and LAeqN (45 dB). Revoredo and Slama (2008) presents a description of these metrics and standards, and a discussion on their usage in Brazil. 3. Brazilian regulatory framework analysis It was shown that the land use policies around Brazilian exist since 1966. An important aspect to be considered is that, at that time, Brazil
Fig. 3. 1984 Noise Curves Level 1 and 2 for Congonhas Airport (Sao Paulo) and Fortaleza Airport. 3
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Table 1 shows that the civil aviation authority (ANAC) and the environmental authority (CONAMA) present their compatibility criteria with different noise metrics, and thus cannot be directly compared. The LDN considers the noise levels over a complete 24 -h period, while the LAeqD and LAeqN averages the noise levels over the day period (from 7h to 22h) and night period (from 22h to 07h), respectively. However, for the sake of comparison, an hypothetical 24 -h period with a LAeqD = 65 dB (day) and a LAeqN =55 dB (night) yields a LDN level of 65 dB. In comparison, a 24 -h period presenting the CONAMA noise criteria for land-use compatibility (LAeqD =50 dB and a LAeqN = 45 dB) will yield a much larger impacted area around the airport than the LDN 65 dB limit. This increases the potential cost involved with a possible compatibility process (Revoredo and Slama, 2008). This point was further analyzed in Silva and Eller (2014), which shows that the number of people affected by aircraft noise in Brazil increases from 300.000 people at LDN = 65 to 2.7 million people at LDN =55.
3.1. Factors that jeopardized the enforcement of land-use restrictions One of the main problems hindering the effective enforcement of land-use restrictions around Brazilian airports is the relationship between the several governmental institutions that have influence on the subject. The Brazilian regulations do not clearly define the level of government responsible for the enforcement of the land-use restrictions determined in the Noise Plans; they only mention that the restrictions shall be observed by the “public administrations”. This may have jeopardized the clear understanding of the rule by the local municipalities’ administrations, which are responsible for land-use definitions and enforcement. Moreover, the regulations do not provide for any sanctions on the “public administrations” that do not observe the federally-defined Noise Plans. As the definition of these restrictions has great economic impact on the affected areas, and the benefits associated with land-use planning may be very long term, it is reasonable to conclude that many local administrations simply chose not to implement the restrictions, since it would be unpopular with the city residents (and voters). Although the Federal Civil Aviation Authority has power to interdict inappropriate constructions, it is virtually impossible for a centralized federal authority to control construction around all airports, specially in large countries. Due to this difficulty, this power has almost never been exercised in the case of incompatible constructions inside the Noise Zones. The regulations do not require any kind of publication of the Noise Zones, which may also jeopardize its implementation. As a comparison, the similar laws from the United States (49 U.S.C. 47503) and European Union (2002/49/EC Article 7) present specific requirements for publication of noise exposure maps. Brazilian regulations only mentions the possibility of removal of buildings which are not compatible with the Zoning: in this case, if the construction was built before the publication of the restrictions, the homeowner would be eligible to compensation. This was probably focused on the situations where buildings were in breach of the Airport Protection Zone, since in this case the safety concerns justify the drastic action of building destruction. On the other hand, residences inside the Noise Plans can be made compatible to the noise levels by means of simpler interventions, such as the installation of acoustic windows. However, the law does not foresee that possibility. This situation leaves a very important question unanswered: how to compensate properties that are located inside the Noise Plans, but were built before their definition? This lack of definition leaves an “historical burden” of incompatible properties that has still yet to be solved at many airports, not only in Brazil. In the United States, this problem is being handled with funds granted at a Federal Government level: whenever an airport identifies incompatible land uses in its vicinity, it may apply for grants to make this land use compatible (U.S.GAO, 2000). However, no similar fund exists in the current Brazilian situation. Without this kind of funding, the burden of compensation falls on local authorities with limited budgets and other priorities, which are therefore unwilling to enforce costly mitigations of aircraft noise. The Brazilian Environmental Licensing process also yields problems on the definition of airport land use planning. The civil aviation regulation (ANAC RBAC 161) presents higher noise level compatibility criteria, and therefore less stringent, than the one required by CONAMA for environmental licensing, as shown in Table 1.
3.2. Issues with the current definition of noise restrictions Even when noise restrictions are correctly enforced, they have not prevented noise-related conflicts at many airports. This is possibly related to the criteria used to define such noise restrictions. Additionally, the purpose of these noise-restricted areas are often misinterpreted by the involved stakeholders. The environmental impact associated with airport noise is traditionally associated with the “percentage of highly-annoyed people” when subject to a certain aircraft noise level. (Schultz, 1978; Miedema and Oudshoorn, 2001 This is translated into a dose-response curve, which in general shows that, as the noise levels increase, more people are highly-annoyed by aircraft noise. This method has informed noise regulation in many countries (FICON, 1992). Dose-response curves try to capture the subjectivity of the human response to aircraft noise, but they fail to predict the exact reaction of each individual when subject to aircraft noise. Even at very low aircraft noise levels, there will be highly sensitive people who will be annoyed, and there will be people who do not feel annoyed by very high noise levels. Furthermore, the survey methodology relating to perception, based on questionnaires and surveys, may introduce response bias. All these uncertainties point to the need for caution when using dose-response curves to determine land-use policy (Kroesen et al., 2013). So the question is: how to define a specific threshold for the implementation of land-use restrictions? The current land-use regulation in Brazil relies on the American definition of 65 LDN or lower as “compatible” for residential uses. However, in the United States the value of 55 LDN was at first defined as the adequate level to protect the public welfare with a good margin of safety (EPA, 1974). The criteria used by FAA (Federal Aviation Administration-USA) to select the value of 65 LDN for its land-use regulations are not clear. One possibility is that cost and feasibility aspects needed to be considered when developing specific land-use compatibility guidelines, leading many U.S. agencies to adopt the 65 LDN threshold. This recognizes that many people will accept noise to this level, provided there are other primary reasons to live at that location (ASTM, 2010). However, the official justification states that cost and technical feasibility were not considered in 65 LDN definition, but only acceptability studies based on the response curves (Department of Transport, 1981). A common problem is that noise thresholds are frequently interpreted by policy makers as the noise level at which a “person should not be complaining” about the noise, or where no further actions are needed because the noise levels are “low enough”. This is the case of the Brazilian framework: it assumes that all areas with noise levels below 65 DNL are “adequate” for all uses, thus these areas are assumed not to require any further actions to mitigate noise impacts. This approach oversimplifies human perception aspects, yielding an incomplete approach to the noise problem because it disregards the existence of
Table 1 Noise Compatibility Criteria for residences. ANAC RBAC 161
CONAMA Resolution 001/1990
LDN = 65
LAeqD = 50/LAeqN = 45
4
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4.3. The responsibilities of the citizens
highly-sensitive people who may well be annoyed by noise levels lower than this threshold.
One responsibility often overlooked is that on the citizens themselves who choose to live in an area subject to aircraft noise. As already described, it is impossible for a land-use policy to guarantee that a specific noise level will be considered acceptable to anyone. Given this, it is reasonable to require citizens to be accountable for the choices they make when it comes to living close to an airport. However, this requires relevant and comprehensible noise information to be available if noise issues are to be considered by the general public when choosing a residential location, alongside other factors - such as price, neighborhood, access to transportation, etc. This places even more importance on the issue of Communication, since that, in order to be made accountable, people must be adequately informed of the area conditions before making a residential location decision. This can be done by the Disclosure system described in Section 4.2. With that, citizens may be empowered to make informed decisions when choosing a place to live, and also be made accountable for the decisions made. Something similar is already in place in the US Law, which precludes citizens from seeking compensation for noise exposure if they were previously informed of the noise conditions of the area before the property acquisition (49 U.S.C. 47506).
4. Lessons learned from the Brazilian experience with land-use around airports Given this complex scenario, this section intends to suggest possible guidelines that may be observed when defining land-use policies related to noise around airports: 4.1. Defining governmental roles and responsibilities Many of the land-use planning conflicts identified are related to the lack of a clear definition of the roles and responsibilities of each of the governmental agencies with influence over airport noise issues: Federal and Local Governments, Air Force, Environmental Agencies. These definitions need to be very clear on the policy definitions and responsibilities, and should also include the participation of the affected communities. Good practices toward this objective would be:
• Identifying a Central Authority with the responsibility for all aircraft • •
noise issues, and also for the coordination of policy implementation with all other relevant parties. Explicitly exempt the Environmental Agencies for issuing land-use regulations on aircraft noise, since the technical details and knowledge involved would generally reside within the Civil Aviation Authorities. Encouraging effective enforcement by local administrations of land use restrictions defined in Noise Plans. For example, local administrators in Brazil (e.g. city mayors) are subject to administrative processes in the case of non-observance of some Federally-defined rules, which could ultimately lead to the loss of their 4-year term. It would be possible to explicitly include the non-observance of Noise Plans restrictions as a justification for the imposition of such Federal sanctions and thereby encourage the enforcement of the restrictions.
4.4. The objectives of noise limits The definition of noise thresholds for land-use compatibility concerning aircraft noise is highly controversial. A very low threshold will translate into a very large areas around the airports with land-use restrictions, which may be costly to implement, especially in a developing country (Silva and Eller, 2014). Reisi et al. (2016) points out the negative impact of these restrictions on the overall sustainability of the transport system: higher local population density improves some environmental parameters, especially fuel consumption, so land-use restrictions linked to noise could have a negative impact on the overall sustainability index of a city. This means that, on one hand, highlypopulated areas close to airports mean a higher number of people affected by aircraft noise, but on the other hand closer proximity will reduce the fuel burned to take people to the airport. The cost implications also need to be taken into account: in the US, the 65 LDN threshold defines areas in which properties are eligible for insulation. However, it may well be that the financial burden associated with the insulation provision could be too large or unreasonable for a developing country with several other priorities. Moreover, the occupation density in the vicinity of airports may vary a lot when all the airports of a country are considered, so it is unreasonable to assume that a single threshold is reasonable to be used in all the situations. In cases of new airports in undeveloped land, it may be simple to implement a very low noise limit, which will incur large restricted areas. This may not be the case for urban airports close to big cities: the compatibility cost associated with a low noise limit may be too great, and even greater if cost of unused infrastructure that may already exist in the restricted areas is included. Some Brazilian airports can illustrate these situations. The Congonhas Airport (ICAO Code: SBSP), in the center of São Paulo, is an airport with a consolidated land use on its vicinity. In this situation, it is very expensive or ineffective to implement land-use restrictions. In the other hand, the International Airport of Natal (ICAO Code: SBSG), recently inaugurated in 2014, does not have any occupation on its surroundings, which makes it very simple to protect larger areas from the effects of aircraft noise. Land use around these two airports is depicted in Fig. 4: The analysis of Fig. 3 show that it is unreasonable to use the same noise criteria for defining land-use restrictions around these two airports: in the case of the Natal airport, a noise criteria much lower than LDN = 65 dB can be adopted without relevant costs, which will effectively contribute to avoid noise-related issues in the future. On the other
4.2. The importance of communication Due to the great variability in people’s perception of noise, it is of ultimate importance that citizens are adequately informed of the aircraft noise levels existing in an area, even if those noise levels are considered to be “low” by current policy. This can empower people to make decisions based on their individual attitudes concerning the noise source. Some countries have already implemented specific requirements on the publication of noise exposure maps, but this still does not guarantee that a prospective buyer will be aware of the noise levels when choosing a place to live. A better way of achieving an efficient communication would be to register the noise characteristics of the area in the Real Estate registry of each property. This option has already been studied by the United States Government (Public Law 108-176, 2003, Section 211). Beyond this official communication of noise levels, it is also important that all the affected parties have a means to express their opinions and thoughts over the specific situation at each airport. A good example of this are the “Airport Consultative Committees” that are required by Civil Aviation Act of 1982 in the United Kingdom. This kind of committee may be useful to resolve conflicts and find solutions to aircraft noise issues, which may indirectly increase the tolerance of local communities to the noise levels by acknowledging the details and importance of airport operations. Improved communication is thus essential to encourage citizens to engage in decision-making processes in the transition to democratic rule (Santos et al., 2018). A possible means of using modern social media to reach people affected by aircraft noise was described by Silva et al (2017). 5
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Fig. 4. Comparison of the vicinity of Congonhas Airport and Natal International Airport.
Local Government to observe the restrictions, so in case they are not observed, it would be the Local Government responsibility to eventually compensate people who are allowed to build properties inside the Noise Zones. Finally, there is the case where the Noise Zones are increased in size due to changes in airport operation, for example: new runways, increase in the number of operations, change in aircraft size and noise. In this last case, the “polluter pays” concept would be fully applicable and the burden shall be attributed to the airport operator, since in this case the new incompatible properties result from the expansion of air services. This proposed process can be visualized in Fig. 5:
hand, it is almost impossible to make all the properties surrounding Congonhas airport to comply with the same LDN = 65 dB criteria, as the number of affected properties is already too large. Therefore, in this situation, a higher LDN criteria could be adopted, in order to focus the noise mitigation efforts in the mostg affected areas first. Scatolini et al (2016) propose some alternatives to mitigate the noise pollution on this airport considering the limitations of the ICAO Balanced Approach in this situation. Given this discussion, it is clear that cost aspects should be better considered on the definitions of land-use restrictions around airports, instead of the fixed definitions based on noise thresholds. This is in line with the subjective nature of noise perception: current regulations rely on the definitions of “acceptable” noise levels that are impossible to be agreed by every citizen. It also takes into account the feasibility of the proposed actions, since the concept of “non-acceptability” is generally understood as “eligibility for compensation”, even though the compensation-related costs may be unreasonable, especially in a developing country. This would also emphasize that noise impacts may also exist at noise levels under 65 LDN, addressing areas subject to lower noise levels that are currently not considered by the regulation, but where noiserelated conflicts are increasing (ACRP, 2009).
5. Conclusions The Brazilian regulations for land-use planning around airports is complex and subject to actions from several entities. It was also influenced by changes in the political situation from a centralized military government to a civilian one, which yielded several changes in the roles expected from the institutions involved in the planning process. This work has depicted the main laws and regulations involved, their advantages and drawbacks, and possible means for improvement. The analysis of the Brazilian situation points two main issues associated with the land-use planning around airports: 1) land-use restrictions are in many cases not implemented or enforced, and (2) even when correctly implemented, land-use restrictions did not avoid noiserelated conflicts in many situations, possibly due to issues with the current methodologies for defining the areas impacted by noise. To address the first issue, the paper highlighted the importance of clear definitions of the responsibilities of all affected parties, along with the benefits to be derived from a single central entity to be responsible for rule definition and coordination with all the other parties involved. With regards to the second issue, the subject of noise levels criteria for the imposition of land-use restrictions was also discussed. Given the complexities involved, it is suggested that cost benefit approaches should be pursued further, rather than the current acceptability criteria based on noise thresholds that do not reflect the highly subjective nature of aircraft noise issues, or even the practical achievability of the proposed noise thresholds. A possible compatibility process for residences subject to high noise levels was also proposed, with shared responsibilities for government and airport operators, due to the different possible causes of the problem. Finally, the importance of effective and official communication between all stakeholders was highlighted, including citizens, irrespective of the noise levels to which they are exposed, as a means to direct the highly-sensitive away from affected areas, as well as potentially increasing public tolerance to aircraft noise. These proposals may be useful in the definition of the policy framework in countries with similar characteristics that involve issues related to aircraft noise, developing economy, growing civil aviation numbers, changing political scenario and new governmental institutions.
4.5. Handling the “historical burden” A good land use policy must clearly state how to handle the properties that were built before the establishment of the restrictions. Compatibility programs may be costly to implement, so the main question to be answered is which entity shall be responsible for these liabilities. Silva and Eller (2014) have estimated the cost associated with the compatibility process of residences exposed to aircraft noise levels over 65 LDN in Brazil at 1.5 billion Brazilian Reals (approx. 400 million USD). A very common concept in environmental compensation is the “polluter pays” principle, which states that the burden associated with the environmental damage shall be covered by the party responsible for the environmental impact (Ambec and Ehlers, 2014). In the case of Airport Noise, this principle would direct to the airports, airlines and passengers all the responsibility for the eventual retrofit of houses and other noise-affected properties, since they are the responsible for the generation of noise. However, this may not be completely fair in this specific case, since the noise generation is not an environmental impacts per se. To become an environmental impact, the noise must reach populated areas, and the airports have no control on where people will live: this control remains at a Governmental level. This scenario points out to a shared responsibility for the compatibility process of residences inside Noise Zones. Since the Noise Zones are general federally-defined, it is reasonable to assume that the Federal Government shall compensate people in residences built before the first Noise Zone definition, in the same way as is done for the Protection Zones. Once the Noise Zones are published, it is the responsibility of the 6
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Fig. 5. Proposed process for compensation of affected residences.
Acknowledgement
for noise and pollutant emissions reduction. Transp. Policy 34, 36–51. Heathrow, 2018. Our Noise Strategy. Accessed in 12/Aug/2018. https://www.heathrow.com/noise/making-heathrow-quieter/our-noise-strategy. . ICAO, 2008. Guidance on the balanced approach to aircraft noise management. Document 9829 AN/451. Kroesen, M., Molin, E.J.E., Van Wee, B., 2013. Measuring subjective response to aircraft noise: the effects of survey context. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 133 (1), 238–246. Li, K.M., Eiff, G., Laffitte, J., McDaniel, D., 2007. Land Use Management and Airport Controls Trends and Indicators of Incompatible Land Use. The Partnership for AiR Transportation Noise and Emissions Reduction, Report Number. PARTNER COE2008-001. . Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, 2018. Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) Noise Contour Map Update. Available at http://www.flydulles.com/ sites/default/files/iad_noisecontourmapupdate_-_briefing_material_april_4_2018.pdf. . Miedema, H.M.E., Oudshoorn, C.G.M., 2001. Annoyance from transportation noise: relationships with exposure metrics DNL and DENL and their confidence intervals. Environ. Health Perspect. 109 (4). Reisi, M., Aye, L., Rajabifard, A., Ngo, T., 2016. Land-use planning: implications for transport sustainability. Land Use Policy 50, 252–261. Revoredo, T.C., Slama, J.G., 2008. Noise metrics comparison and its use on urban zoning in airport surveys: a Brazilian case study. J. Air Transp. Manage. 14, 304–307. Santos, G.S., Gomes, R.A., Santos, E.A., 2018. J. Air Transp. Manage. 69 (June), 269–278. Scatolini, F., Alves, C.J.P., Eller, R.A.G., 2016. Easing the concept “Balanced Approach” to airports with densely busy surroundings – the case of Congonhas Airport. Appl. Acoust. 105 (April), 75–82. Schreckenberg, D., Belke, C., Faulbaum, F., Guski, R., Ulrich, M., Spilski, J., 2016. Effects of aircraft noise on annoyance and sleep disturbances before and after expansion of Frankfurt Airport 7768 - results of the NORAH study, WP 1 ‘Annoyance and quality of life’. In: Proceedings of INTER-NOISE 2016, 45th International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering. Hamburg, Germany, August 21–24. pp. 7768–7777. Schultz, T.J., 1978. Synthesis of social surveys on noise annoyance. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 64 (2), 377–405. Silva, B.A.C., Eller, R.A.G., 2014. Noise limits for land-use compatibility: a cost-effectiveness analysis for Brazilian airports. In: XIII SITRAER – Air Transportation Symposium. November, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. pp. 17–19. Silva, B.A.C., Eller, R.A.G., Santos, G.S., Gjestland, T., 2017. Annoyance survey by means
The authors would like to thank CNPq(Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – Brazil), for the financial support for this work. Appendix A. Supplementary data Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019. 104314. References ACRP, 2009. Compilation of noise programs in areas outside DNL 65. A Synthesis of Airport Practice. Estados Unidos, Washington. Airports Commission, 2013. Discussion Paper 05: Aviation Noise. United Kingdom. . Ambec, S., Ehlers, L., 2014. Regulation via the polluter-pays principle. Econ. J. https:// doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12184. ASTM, 2010. E1686-10 Standard Guide for Applying Environmental Noise Measurement Methods and Criteria. Babisch, W., 2009. Annoyance due to aircraft noise has increased over the years—results of the HYENA study. Environ. Int. 35, 1169–1176. Basner, M., Clark, C., Hansell, A., Hileman, J., Janssen, S., Shepherd, K., Sparrow, V., 2017. Aviation noise impacts: state of the science. Noise Health 19, 41–50. https:// doi.org/10.4103/nah.NAH_104_16. Department of Transport, 1981. 14 CFR PART 150, Interim Rule, 46 Federal Register 8316-01. Federal Interagency Committee On Noise, 1992. Federal Agency Review of Selected Airport Noise Analysis Issues. Folha de São Paulo, 2019. Rio estabelece restrições para conceder licença ambiental ao aeroporto Santos Dumont. 04/08/2009, available at www.folha.com.br. Graham, W.R., Hall, C.A., Morales, M.V., 2014. The potential of future aircraft technology
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Congress. April. Washington Post, 2016. New Report Says Noise Complaints are up at National. Dulles airports Accessed in 12/Aug 2018 at https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/new-report-says-noise-complaints-are-up-at-national-dulles-airports/2017/09/16/78f221e8-9962-11e7-b569-3360011663b4_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e2e717a73d05.
of social media. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 141, 1019. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4976055. Therivel, R.B., Barren, B.F.D., 1990. Airport developments and EIA: Kansai International Airport, Japan. Land Use Policy 7 (1), 80–86. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1974. Information on Levels of Environmental Noise Requisite to Protect Public Health and Welfare with an Adequate Margin of Safety. March. . US General Accounting Office, 2000. FAAs role in major airport noise problems. Report to
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Land use policy in the vicinity of airports: Analysis and lessons learned from the Brazilian situation
T
Bruno Arantes Caldeira da Silva, Gustavo Sobreiro Santos, Rogeria de Arantes Gomes* Aeronautics Institute of Technology, Praça Marechal Eduardo Gomes, 50, São José dos Campos - SP, 12228-900, Brazil
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Noise zoning Aircraft noise Land use restrictions
Aircraft noise is one of the main environmental impacts associated with airports operation. Evidence suggests that sensitivity to aircraft noise is increasing. Besides the expected growth in air transportation, conflicts between airports and communities living in its surroundings are expected to increase also if not action is taken. Land-use regulation is one of the tools used to mitigate these impacts and allow the evolution of Civil Aviation minimizing adverse reactions from people living in airport surroundings. Traditionally, this regulation is done by defining land-use restrictions around airports, based on noise contours. However, these restrictions are often not enforced in practice because of cost-related issues and lack of coordination between the various stakeholders involved. Even when they are correctly implemented, they have not avoided noise-related conflicts in many cases, which indicates possible limitations of this approach. This article intends to suggest possible improvements to the process of land-use planning around airports. For that, the framework for land-use policy definitions around Brazilian airports will be used as a case study, from which are drawn recommendations and lessonslearned that may be generally applicable to other countries
1. Introduction
sensitivity to aircraft noise has been increasing (Babisch, 2009; Schreckenberg et al., 2016). Additionally, it is expected that air transport will increase at a rate of 4.5% per year up to 2042, meaning that air transport operations will double by 2032 (ICAO, 2016). These factors indicate that noise-related conflicts around airports may increase in the future. This scenario highlights the importance of land-use planning to reduce the number of people exposed to significant noise levels from aircraft, since it can direct incompatible uses such as residences to areas away from the airport, thus reducing the reactions of residents to the airport operation and allowing the airport to be used at its full capacity and efficiency, even at night periods, for example. The basic approach currently in use for land-use planning around airports is based on the definition of restricted areas around airports, where land uses incompatible with high noise levels are not allowed. However, in many cases such restrictions are not properly enforced (Li et al., 2007). Additionally, in many cases even the correct implementation of restrictions has not been sufficient to avoid aircraft noise conflicts, or to predict the areas where the noise levels are high enough to trigger community reactions (ACRP, 2009). Brazil has an area of 8,515,770 km2, just slightly smaller than the USA. It is the largest country in South America and in the Southern Hemisphere, shares common boundaries with every South American
Adequate land-use planning around airports is of imperative importance, mainly because of two aspects: high buildings can interfere with the air traffic, causing safety risks to the airport operation, and environmental impacts related to the airport operation can make the areas around the airport unsuitable for certain land uses. Among the environmental impacts caused by airports, aircraft noise is the main driver of reactions and opposition in many world airports (Therivel and Barren, 1990). This has led the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to propose a "Balanced Approach" to manage aircraft noise issues at individual airports (ICAO, 2008). It is based on four elements, which are recommended to be adopted in a specific order: reduction of noise at source, land-use planning and management, noise abatement operational procedures and operating restrictions. However, the implementation of noise reduction technologies in aircraft is facing an increasing conflict with fuel burn and CO2 emissions constraints (Graham et al., 2014). Operational procedures can be effective in many cases but are not always sufficient or feasible to prevent and reduce aircraft noise annoyance (Basner et al., 2017). Operational restrictions can be very effective, but are also a drastic measure and, according to ICAO’s Balanced Approach, should only be implemented as a last resource. Some studies also indicate that ⁎
Corresponding author at: Aeronautics Institute of Technology, Air Transportation Department, São José dos Campos, Sp, Brazil. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (B.A.C. da Silva), [email protected] (G.S. Santos), [email protected] (R.d.A. Gomes).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104314 Received 29 March 2016; Received in revised form 5 September 2019; Accepted 15 October 2019 Available online 11 November 2019 0264-8377/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Fig. 1. Land use around Guarulhos Airport, 1980 and 2015.
problems, and propose improvements based on the lessons learned in the Brazilian situation, which may be generally applicable to other countries that experience the same difficulties related to aircraft noise.
country except Chile and Ecuador. Brazil has 4.093 airfields, of which 698 have paved runways, losing only to the United States (13,513 airfields, which 5054 with paved runways). The territorial extension of Brazil allows the existence of different scenarios of population density, socio economic levels, and land use characteristics around airports. These scenarios encompass most of the problems associated with land-use planning around airports, which can be generalized for other countries situations. Land-use restrictions related to airport noise have been in force in Brazil since the early 1980s, but did not succeed in accomplishing compatible land use at many important airports. One example of this situation is observed in Guarulhos Airport (SBGR), the busiest airport in Brazil. Fig. 1 depicts the surroundings of Guarulhos airport (SBGR) in 1980 and in 2015, when it was the busiest airport in Brazil. The limits of the official noise plan for this airport, published in 1984, are illustrated for the 2015 situation. Fig. 1 shows that the Noise Plan published in 1984 was not effective in hindering the construction of residences around the airport. Such situation happens often in other world airports, as the economic activity fostered by an airport generally attracts residential developments. Li et al (2007) shows that land-use restrictions were not properly implemented in three important airports in the United States (Denver, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando). In the United Kingdom, the relevant policy and regulatory schemes put in place to stop such attraction did not avoid the increase in the number of people living in the vicinity of five UK airports (Airports Commission, 2013). To address that, the Heathrow airport administration includes, in its noise strategy, specific initiatives to encourage the Government to restrict noise sensitive development in high noise areas (Heathrow, 2018). Even when the land-use restrictions were observed, they did not avoid noise-related conflicts at many important airports in Brazil. As an example, Fig. 2 shows the official Noise Zoning published in 1984 for Santos Dumont Airport (SBRJ), in Rio de Janeiro-Brazil. Fig. 2 shows that the noise restricted areas around Santos Dumont airport did not encompass any populated area. This situation led to the wrong conclusion that other noise mitigation strategies were not needed. But noise-related conflicts are being observed at this airport and are hindering the expansion of this airport’s operations (Folha de Sao Paulo, 2019). A similar example can be observed in Washington-Dulles airport (IAD), which is considered an example of land use planning around airports in the United States. The local authorities have successfully applied Potential Noise Contours recommended by the airport as a tool for effective land use planning and zoning for long-term compatibility with IAD (MWAA, 2018). However, this did not avoid noise-related issues caused by recent operational changes at the airport (Washington Post, 2016). These examples show that the simple observance of noise-restricted areas is not sufficient to avoid noise related issues, and therefore other land use planning strategies are needed beyond the traditional noise zoning. This work intends to depict the overall framework of land-use planning for noise around Brazilian airports, discuss its advantages and
2. Brazilian regulatory framework for land-use around airports 2.1. Civil aviation regulations Land use restrictions around Brazilian airports have existed since 1966, when a “Protection Zone Plan” around airports was defined to avoid the construction of high buildings that could interfere with air traffic. Specific restrictions over noise were included in the early 1980s by means of a “Noise Zone Plan” (Plano de Zoneamento de Ruído-PZR) that defined areas around aerodromes subject to land use restrictions with the objective of avoiding the construction of buildings incompatible with the noise levels generated by the operation of aerodromes. A specific noise metric was used to define noise compatibility: the IPR (Índice Ponderado de Ruído – Noise Weighted Index). Areas with IPR lower than 53 were considered to be adequate for any use, some land-use restrictions were defined for IPR values between 53 and 60, and increased restrictions would be necessary for IPR above 60. The responsibility for defining these areas was given to the Federal Executive Power, without defining a specific institution, and the practical implementation became the responsibility of Local Municipalities Administrations where the aerodromes were located. There was also the provision for compensatory payments in the cases where the land-use restrictions require the removal of buildings, or forbid new construction. Using this metric and criteria, PZRs were defined for 61 national airports, which encompassed the most important airports operating at that time in Brazil. Examples of these early-defined PZRs are shown in Fig. 3: In 1986, some subtle changes were incorporated in the regulations: the practical implementation of the Noise Plans was generically imposed over the “Administrations” instead of the “Local Municipalities Administrations” specified before. These differences may be explained by reference to the political context at the time (transition from a Military Dictatorship to a Democratic Rule), since it was not clear how the responsibilities of the Central government would be transferred to the new institutions in the Democratic scenario. As a result from this transition from dictatorship to democracy, Brazilian Civil Aviation matters were handled by a military department until the year 2005, when ANAC (Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil – Civil Aviation National Agency) was created. ANAC was empowered to regulate almost all aspects of Civil Aviation, only excluding Air Traffic control and Accidents Investigation, which remain a Brazilian Air Force responsibility to the moment. More recently, in 2011, ANAC developed its own Land-use regulation for Noise around aerodromes: the RBAC 161 (Regulamento Brasileiro da Aviação Civil – Brazilian Civil Aviation Regulation). This regulation adopted a new metric to be used in the Noise Plans: the LDN (Day-Night Average Sound Level), and the reference value of 65 LDN as acceptable to all land uses. These definitions were based on the 2
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Fig. 2. Noise restricted areas around Santos Dumont Airport in 1984.
was ruled by centralized military government, when the decisions were made with fewer concerns over general public participation, or responsibility sharing over several entities. The process of redemocratization in Brazil had just ended in 1988, with the promulgation of a new Civilian Constitution. However, the hand-over of powers to the civil authorities was completed in an abrupt way, and Civil Aviation matters remained being ruled by the Military, in a concentrative model of governance with little people participation, until very recently, when ANAC was created in 2005. This situation may have created a transitional period when the necessary knowledge was not entirely available to local governments that received the responsibilities for land-use enforcement. Having this scenario in mind, this section lists some issues existing in the Brazilian Regulatory framework for noise planning around airports that may have contributed to the existence of noise-related problems in many airports. For that, a division is made in the two main issues identified: the lack of enforcement of land-use restrictions, and the issues with the current approach for defining noise-related restrictions.
American regulation of the subject (14 CFR Part 150). 2.2. Environmental licensing regulations Regulations over environmental licensing of economic activities (which includes Airports) were also developed in Brazil throughout the last decades, in parallel with the civil aviation regulations for land-use around airports. In 1986, CONAMA (Conselho Nacional de Meio Ambiente - National Environmental Council defined the need for an Environmental Impact Assessment of all the “Activities that change the environment”. Concerning noise aspects, CONAMA ruled that general Technical Standards NBR 10.151 and NBR 10.152 must be used to evaluate noise impacts in the Environmental Licensing process. These standards define noise compatibility levels for residential areas in terms of the noise metrics LAeqD (50 dB) and LAeqN (45 dB). Revoredo and Slama (2008) presents a description of these metrics and standards, and a discussion on their usage in Brazil. 3. Brazilian regulatory framework analysis It was shown that the land use policies around Brazilian exist since 1966. An important aspect to be considered is that, at that time, Brazil
Fig. 3. 1984 Noise Curves Level 1 and 2 for Congonhas Airport (Sao Paulo) and Fortaleza Airport. 3
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Table 1 shows that the civil aviation authority (ANAC) and the environmental authority (CONAMA) present their compatibility criteria with different noise metrics, and thus cannot be directly compared. The LDN considers the noise levels over a complete 24 -h period, while the LAeqD and LAeqN averages the noise levels over the day period (from 7h to 22h) and night period (from 22h to 07h), respectively. However, for the sake of comparison, an hypothetical 24 -h period with a LAeqD = 65 dB (day) and a LAeqN =55 dB (night) yields a LDN level of 65 dB. In comparison, a 24 -h period presenting the CONAMA noise criteria for land-use compatibility (LAeqD =50 dB and a LAeqN = 45 dB) will yield a much larger impacted area around the airport than the LDN 65 dB limit. This increases the potential cost involved with a possible compatibility process (Revoredo and Slama, 2008). This point was further analyzed in Silva and Eller (2014), which shows that the number of people affected by aircraft noise in Brazil increases from 300.000 people at LDN = 65 to 2.7 million people at LDN =55.
3.1. Factors that jeopardized the enforcement of land-use restrictions One of the main problems hindering the effective enforcement of land-use restrictions around Brazilian airports is the relationship between the several governmental institutions that have influence on the subject. The Brazilian regulations do not clearly define the level of government responsible for the enforcement of the land-use restrictions determined in the Noise Plans; they only mention that the restrictions shall be observed by the “public administrations”. This may have jeopardized the clear understanding of the rule by the local municipalities’ administrations, which are responsible for land-use definitions and enforcement. Moreover, the regulations do not provide for any sanctions on the “public administrations” that do not observe the federally-defined Noise Plans. As the definition of these restrictions has great economic impact on the affected areas, and the benefits associated with land-use planning may be very long term, it is reasonable to conclude that many local administrations simply chose not to implement the restrictions, since it would be unpopular with the city residents (and voters). Although the Federal Civil Aviation Authority has power to interdict inappropriate constructions, it is virtually impossible for a centralized federal authority to control construction around all airports, specially in large countries. Due to this difficulty, this power has almost never been exercised in the case of incompatible constructions inside the Noise Zones. The regulations do not require any kind of publication of the Noise Zones, which may also jeopardize its implementation. As a comparison, the similar laws from the United States (49 U.S.C. 47503) and European Union (2002/49/EC Article 7) present specific requirements for publication of noise exposure maps. Brazilian regulations only mentions the possibility of removal of buildings which are not compatible with the Zoning: in this case, if the construction was built before the publication of the restrictions, the homeowner would be eligible to compensation. This was probably focused on the situations where buildings were in breach of the Airport Protection Zone, since in this case the safety concerns justify the drastic action of building destruction. On the other hand, residences inside the Noise Plans can be made compatible to the noise levels by means of simpler interventions, such as the installation of acoustic windows. However, the law does not foresee that possibility. This situation leaves a very important question unanswered: how to compensate properties that are located inside the Noise Plans, but were built before their definition? This lack of definition leaves an “historical burden” of incompatible properties that has still yet to be solved at many airports, not only in Brazil. In the United States, this problem is being handled with funds granted at a Federal Government level: whenever an airport identifies incompatible land uses in its vicinity, it may apply for grants to make this land use compatible (U.S.GAO, 2000). However, no similar fund exists in the current Brazilian situation. Without this kind of funding, the burden of compensation falls on local authorities with limited budgets and other priorities, which are therefore unwilling to enforce costly mitigations of aircraft noise. The Brazilian Environmental Licensing process also yields problems on the definition of airport land use planning. The civil aviation regulation (ANAC RBAC 161) presents higher noise level compatibility criteria, and therefore less stringent, than the one required by CONAMA for environmental licensing, as shown in Table 1.
3.2. Issues with the current definition of noise restrictions Even when noise restrictions are correctly enforced, they have not prevented noise-related conflicts at many airports. This is possibly related to the criteria used to define such noise restrictions. Additionally, the purpose of these noise-restricted areas are often misinterpreted by the involved stakeholders. The environmental impact associated with airport noise is traditionally associated with the “percentage of highly-annoyed people” when subject to a certain aircraft noise level. (Schultz, 1978; Miedema and Oudshoorn, 2001 This is translated into a dose-response curve, which in general shows that, as the noise levels increase, more people are highly-annoyed by aircraft noise. This method has informed noise regulation in many countries (FICON, 1992). Dose-response curves try to capture the subjectivity of the human response to aircraft noise, but they fail to predict the exact reaction of each individual when subject to aircraft noise. Even at very low aircraft noise levels, there will be highly sensitive people who will be annoyed, and there will be people who do not feel annoyed by very high noise levels. Furthermore, the survey methodology relating to perception, based on questionnaires and surveys, may introduce response bias. All these uncertainties point to the need for caution when using dose-response curves to determine land-use policy (Kroesen et al., 2013). So the question is: how to define a specific threshold for the implementation of land-use restrictions? The current land-use regulation in Brazil relies on the American definition of 65 LDN or lower as “compatible” for residential uses. However, in the United States the value of 55 LDN was at first defined as the adequate level to protect the public welfare with a good margin of safety (EPA, 1974). The criteria used by FAA (Federal Aviation Administration-USA) to select the value of 65 LDN for its land-use regulations are not clear. One possibility is that cost and feasibility aspects needed to be considered when developing specific land-use compatibility guidelines, leading many U.S. agencies to adopt the 65 LDN threshold. This recognizes that many people will accept noise to this level, provided there are other primary reasons to live at that location (ASTM, 2010). However, the official justification states that cost and technical feasibility were not considered in 65 LDN definition, but only acceptability studies based on the response curves (Department of Transport, 1981). A common problem is that noise thresholds are frequently interpreted by policy makers as the noise level at which a “person should not be complaining” about the noise, or where no further actions are needed because the noise levels are “low enough”. This is the case of the Brazilian framework: it assumes that all areas with noise levels below 65 DNL are “adequate” for all uses, thus these areas are assumed not to require any further actions to mitigate noise impacts. This approach oversimplifies human perception aspects, yielding an incomplete approach to the noise problem because it disregards the existence of
Table 1 Noise Compatibility Criteria for residences. ANAC RBAC 161
CONAMA Resolution 001/1990
LDN = 65
LAeqD = 50/LAeqN = 45
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4.3. The responsibilities of the citizens
highly-sensitive people who may well be annoyed by noise levels lower than this threshold.
One responsibility often overlooked is that on the citizens themselves who choose to live in an area subject to aircraft noise. As already described, it is impossible for a land-use policy to guarantee that a specific noise level will be considered acceptable to anyone. Given this, it is reasonable to require citizens to be accountable for the choices they make when it comes to living close to an airport. However, this requires relevant and comprehensible noise information to be available if noise issues are to be considered by the general public when choosing a residential location, alongside other factors - such as price, neighborhood, access to transportation, etc. This places even more importance on the issue of Communication, since that, in order to be made accountable, people must be adequately informed of the area conditions before making a residential location decision. This can be done by the Disclosure system described in Section 4.2. With that, citizens may be empowered to make informed decisions when choosing a place to live, and also be made accountable for the decisions made. Something similar is already in place in the US Law, which precludes citizens from seeking compensation for noise exposure if they were previously informed of the noise conditions of the area before the property acquisition (49 U.S.C. 47506).
4. Lessons learned from the Brazilian experience with land-use around airports Given this complex scenario, this section intends to suggest possible guidelines that may be observed when defining land-use policies related to noise around airports: 4.1. Defining governmental roles and responsibilities Many of the land-use planning conflicts identified are related to the lack of a clear definition of the roles and responsibilities of each of the governmental agencies with influence over airport noise issues: Federal and Local Governments, Air Force, Environmental Agencies. These definitions need to be very clear on the policy definitions and responsibilities, and should also include the participation of the affected communities. Good practices toward this objective would be:
• Identifying a Central Authority with the responsibility for all aircraft • •
noise issues, and also for the coordination of policy implementation with all other relevant parties. Explicitly exempt the Environmental Agencies for issuing land-use regulations on aircraft noise, since the technical details and knowledge involved would generally reside within the Civil Aviation Authorities. Encouraging effective enforcement by local administrations of land use restrictions defined in Noise Plans. For example, local administrators in Brazil (e.g. city mayors) are subject to administrative processes in the case of non-observance of some Federally-defined rules, which could ultimately lead to the loss of their 4-year term. It would be possible to explicitly include the non-observance of Noise Plans restrictions as a justification for the imposition of such Federal sanctions and thereby encourage the enforcement of the restrictions.
4.4. The objectives of noise limits The definition of noise thresholds for land-use compatibility concerning aircraft noise is highly controversial. A very low threshold will translate into a very large areas around the airports with land-use restrictions, which may be costly to implement, especially in a developing country (Silva and Eller, 2014). Reisi et al. (2016) points out the negative impact of these restrictions on the overall sustainability of the transport system: higher local population density improves some environmental parameters, especially fuel consumption, so land-use restrictions linked to noise could have a negative impact on the overall sustainability index of a city. This means that, on one hand, highlypopulated areas close to airports mean a higher number of people affected by aircraft noise, but on the other hand closer proximity will reduce the fuel burned to take people to the airport. The cost implications also need to be taken into account: in the US, the 65 LDN threshold defines areas in which properties are eligible for insulation. However, it may well be that the financial burden associated with the insulation provision could be too large or unreasonable for a developing country with several other priorities. Moreover, the occupation density in the vicinity of airports may vary a lot when all the airports of a country are considered, so it is unreasonable to assume that a single threshold is reasonable to be used in all the situations. In cases of new airports in undeveloped land, it may be simple to implement a very low noise limit, which will incur large restricted areas. This may not be the case for urban airports close to big cities: the compatibility cost associated with a low noise limit may be too great, and even greater if cost of unused infrastructure that may already exist in the restricted areas is included. Some Brazilian airports can illustrate these situations. The Congonhas Airport (ICAO Code: SBSP), in the center of São Paulo, is an airport with a consolidated land use on its vicinity. In this situation, it is very expensive or ineffective to implement land-use restrictions. In the other hand, the International Airport of Natal (ICAO Code: SBSG), recently inaugurated in 2014, does not have any occupation on its surroundings, which makes it very simple to protect larger areas from the effects of aircraft noise. Land use around these two airports is depicted in Fig. 4: The analysis of Fig. 3 show that it is unreasonable to use the same noise criteria for defining land-use restrictions around these two airports: in the case of the Natal airport, a noise criteria much lower than LDN = 65 dB can be adopted without relevant costs, which will effectively contribute to avoid noise-related issues in the future. On the other
4.2. The importance of communication Due to the great variability in people’s perception of noise, it is of ultimate importance that citizens are adequately informed of the aircraft noise levels existing in an area, even if those noise levels are considered to be “low” by current policy. This can empower people to make decisions based on their individual attitudes concerning the noise source. Some countries have already implemented specific requirements on the publication of noise exposure maps, but this still does not guarantee that a prospective buyer will be aware of the noise levels when choosing a place to live. A better way of achieving an efficient communication would be to register the noise characteristics of the area in the Real Estate registry of each property. This option has already been studied by the United States Government (Public Law 108-176, 2003, Section 211). Beyond this official communication of noise levels, it is also important that all the affected parties have a means to express their opinions and thoughts over the specific situation at each airport. A good example of this are the “Airport Consultative Committees” that are required by Civil Aviation Act of 1982 in the United Kingdom. This kind of committee may be useful to resolve conflicts and find solutions to aircraft noise issues, which may indirectly increase the tolerance of local communities to the noise levels by acknowledging the details and importance of airport operations. Improved communication is thus essential to encourage citizens to engage in decision-making processes in the transition to democratic rule (Santos et al., 2018). A possible means of using modern social media to reach people affected by aircraft noise was described by Silva et al (2017). 5
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Fig. 4. Comparison of the vicinity of Congonhas Airport and Natal International Airport.
Local Government to observe the restrictions, so in case they are not observed, it would be the Local Government responsibility to eventually compensate people who are allowed to build properties inside the Noise Zones. Finally, there is the case where the Noise Zones are increased in size due to changes in airport operation, for example: new runways, increase in the number of operations, change in aircraft size and noise. In this last case, the “polluter pays” concept would be fully applicable and the burden shall be attributed to the airport operator, since in this case the new incompatible properties result from the expansion of air services. This proposed process can be visualized in Fig. 5:
hand, it is almost impossible to make all the properties surrounding Congonhas airport to comply with the same LDN = 65 dB criteria, as the number of affected properties is already too large. Therefore, in this situation, a higher LDN criteria could be adopted, in order to focus the noise mitigation efforts in the mostg affected areas first. Scatolini et al (2016) propose some alternatives to mitigate the noise pollution on this airport considering the limitations of the ICAO Balanced Approach in this situation. Given this discussion, it is clear that cost aspects should be better considered on the definitions of land-use restrictions around airports, instead of the fixed definitions based on noise thresholds. This is in line with the subjective nature of noise perception: current regulations rely on the definitions of “acceptable” noise levels that are impossible to be agreed by every citizen. It also takes into account the feasibility of the proposed actions, since the concept of “non-acceptability” is generally understood as “eligibility for compensation”, even though the compensation-related costs may be unreasonable, especially in a developing country. This would also emphasize that noise impacts may also exist at noise levels under 65 LDN, addressing areas subject to lower noise levels that are currently not considered by the regulation, but where noiserelated conflicts are increasing (ACRP, 2009).
5. Conclusions The Brazilian regulations for land-use planning around airports is complex and subject to actions from several entities. It was also influenced by changes in the political situation from a centralized military government to a civilian one, which yielded several changes in the roles expected from the institutions involved in the planning process. This work has depicted the main laws and regulations involved, their advantages and drawbacks, and possible means for improvement. The analysis of the Brazilian situation points two main issues associated with the land-use planning around airports: 1) land-use restrictions are in many cases not implemented or enforced, and (2) even when correctly implemented, land-use restrictions did not avoid noiserelated conflicts in many situations, possibly due to issues with the current methodologies for defining the areas impacted by noise. To address the first issue, the paper highlighted the importance of clear definitions of the responsibilities of all affected parties, along with the benefits to be derived from a single central entity to be responsible for rule definition and coordination with all the other parties involved. With regards to the second issue, the subject of noise levels criteria for the imposition of land-use restrictions was also discussed. Given the complexities involved, it is suggested that cost benefit approaches should be pursued further, rather than the current acceptability criteria based on noise thresholds that do not reflect the highly subjective nature of aircraft noise issues, or even the practical achievability of the proposed noise thresholds. A possible compatibility process for residences subject to high noise levels was also proposed, with shared responsibilities for government and airport operators, due to the different possible causes of the problem. Finally, the importance of effective and official communication between all stakeholders was highlighted, including citizens, irrespective of the noise levels to which they are exposed, as a means to direct the highly-sensitive away from affected areas, as well as potentially increasing public tolerance to aircraft noise. These proposals may be useful in the definition of the policy framework in countries with similar characteristics that involve issues related to aircraft noise, developing economy, growing civil aviation numbers, changing political scenario and new governmental institutions.
4.5. Handling the “historical burden” A good land use policy must clearly state how to handle the properties that were built before the establishment of the restrictions. Compatibility programs may be costly to implement, so the main question to be answered is which entity shall be responsible for these liabilities. Silva and Eller (2014) have estimated the cost associated with the compatibility process of residences exposed to aircraft noise levels over 65 LDN in Brazil at 1.5 billion Brazilian Reals (approx. 400 million USD). A very common concept in environmental compensation is the “polluter pays” principle, which states that the burden associated with the environmental damage shall be covered by the party responsible for the environmental impact (Ambec and Ehlers, 2014). In the case of Airport Noise, this principle would direct to the airports, airlines and passengers all the responsibility for the eventual retrofit of houses and other noise-affected properties, since they are the responsible for the generation of noise. However, this may not be completely fair in this specific case, since the noise generation is not an environmental impacts per se. To become an environmental impact, the noise must reach populated areas, and the airports have no control on where people will live: this control remains at a Governmental level. This scenario points out to a shared responsibility for the compatibility process of residences inside Noise Zones. Since the Noise Zones are general federally-defined, it is reasonable to assume that the Federal Government shall compensate people in residences built before the first Noise Zone definition, in the same way as is done for the Protection Zones. Once the Noise Zones are published, it is the responsibility of the 6
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Fig. 5. Proposed process for compensation of affected residences.
Acknowledgement
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