Quality assessment of quiet areas: a multi-criteria approach (invited paper)

The quiet area concept has found its way to the EC environmental noise directive and the noise policy of several member states. A quiet area is generally defined as an area that is quieter than the surrounding region and has a psychological restoring effect on people visiting it. Nevertheless a clear and objective definition of what constitutes a quiet area and how its quality can be assessed is still lacking. This paper reports on work performed for the Flemish government aiming at summarizing current state of the art knowledge on quiet areas in a multi-criteria quality assessment system. A suitable soundscape for a quiet area is defined as a background that arouses a perception of silence combined with a limited number of disturbing noise events. Natural or location typical noise events are assumed to accentuate quietness rather than to jeopardize it. This view is translated to noise level based criteria at the one hand and to perception based criteria at the other hand. The role of the human listener (both the expert and the laymen enjoying the soundscape) is nevertheless prominent in the set of criteria. Quality assessment depends on the main use of the area and results in three grades of quality, thereby introducing sufficient flexibility to accommodate rural and urban quiet areas alike. Euronoise 2006, Tampere, Finland Dick Botteldooren and Bert De Coensel