Annoyance

About: Annoyance is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2015 publications have been published within this topic receiving 38300 citations. The topic is also known as: annoy.

Assessment of annoyance due to urban road traffic noise combined with tramway noise.

Abstract: Due to the expansion of urban areas, an increasing number of residents are exposed to combined community noise sources. Studies show that the exposure to transportation noise significantly affects health and well-being. Noise annoyance is one of these adverse health effects. Up to now, annoyance due to transportation noise is mostly assessed considering single noise exposure situations neglecting the effects of potential interactions between noise sources. In this study, perceptual phenomena involved in noise annoyance due to combined urban road traffic and tramway noises are assessed in laboratory conditions with imaginary and simulated contexts. The urban road traffic was composed of light vehicles, heavy vehicles, buses, and powered-two-wheelers in different driving conditions. The tramway traffic corresponded to tramways in in-curve operating configurations. It could be shown that the road traffic and tramway traffic partial annoyance responses were influenced by each other. Throughout the experiments the strongest component effect prevailed but secondary phenomena could also be observed. Considering the perceptual phenomena highlighted in the analysis, it is shown that total noise annoyance due to the combined noises can be most adequately predicted by the strongest component model. This result was obtained by calculating partial annoyance responses due to urban road and tramway traffic.

Odour Impact Assessment by Community Survey

Abstract: Odours emissions that result from anthropic activities and may cause an adverse effect on health status, social and individual life are frequently classified as airborne pollutants and are subject to control and regulation. Atmospheric dispersion of unpleasant odours is considered one of the major causes of public complaints concerning air quality and represents a growing social problem in industrialized countries. Due to the need to protect population from possible olfactory nuisances from a food industry located in an urban area in Brazil, an odour impact assessment was conducted to evaluate the annoyance level by means of community survey. The study was carried out in the surroundings of the odour source involving local residents through administration of 395 standard questionnaires in a one-shot campaign. The area of investigation was divided into five sub-areas named Region 1, Region 2, Region 3, Region 4 and Region 5 within a radius of about 2 km centered in the facility. The questionnaire applied characterized basically the public interviewed, hedonic tone, intensity, frequency and period of the day that perceived odour episodes occurred. Annoyance level were compared with the criteria of ≤ 20 % 'at least annoyed' established by New Zealand Ambient Air Quality Guidelines, used as reference, for environmental compliance. Region 2 was the most impacted area by emissions from the facility presenting annoyance level of 31 % at least annoyed. Comparing the degree of annoyance (17 %) for all Regions with the criteria used as a reference (≤ 20 % at least annoyed), food industry is in accordance with maximum annoyance standard permitted. Community survey is a low cost methodology, compared to others methods, but it is difficult to insure impartial judgement in order to avoid errors in the responses. This technic can be satisfactorily used to asses odour impacts from facilities in urban areas taking into account past experiences, seasonal effects and the role of human perception through social participation.