El ruido se considera como uno de los principales contaminantes en el ámbito urbano. La normativa que nos marca el camino a seguir a la hora de luchar contra él se describe en la Directiva 2002/49/CE del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo, del 25 de junio de 2002, sobre evaluación y gestión del ruido ambiental, así como su transposición al ordenamiento jurídico nacional, autonómico y local. En el control del ruido urbano podemos distinguir dos caminos: uno relacionado con el control de actividades ruidosas, como maquinaria, bares, discotecas, etc.; y otro que establece el método para definir y controlar el ruido cuya fuente está conformada por focos dispersos, que por efecto acumulativo provoca un nivel de contaminación acústica contra el que hay que luchar.
Uno de los aspectos más importantes de la normativa acústica vigente es, precisamente, que el número de personas afectadas en una zona dada con molestias o alteración de sueño deben ser analizadas e incluidas como parte del contenido reglado de los mapas estratégicos de ruido. Así se contempla en la Directiva 2002/49/CE, que persigue armonizar los métodos de evaluación, gestión y control del ruido ambiental en la Unión Europea. Ésta armonización incluye la valoración del grado de molestia de las personas como camino para determinar los efectos del ruido en las personas expuestas.
La exposición al ruido, además de todos los efectos que se han mencionado anteriormente, se asocia con un aumento del estrés oxidativo (Yildirim I, 2005). El estrés oxidativo a su vez está relacionado con el desarrollo de multitud de enfermedades (alteraciones cardiovasculares, hipertensión, cáncer, etc).
Autores: Francisco Javier Roberto Roda y Rosana Montes Soldado.
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The noise is considered as one of the major pollutants in urban areas. The legislation that marks the way to fight noise pollution is described in Directive 2002/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 June 2002 related to the assessment and management of environmental noise and transposed into national, regional and local laws. In urban areas, noise control can distinguish two ways: one related to the control of noisy activities, such as machinery, bars, clubs, etc.., and another that sets the method to define and control the noise source which consists of scattered foci, cumulative effect that causes a noise level against which we must fight.
Urban noise control can be exploited in two ways: one related to the control of noisy activities, such as machinery, bars, clubs, etc.., or by setting a method to define and control the noise source against which we must fight. One of the most important aspects of the current noise regulations is precisely the number of people living in a given area with discomfort or sleep disturbance should be analyzed and included as part of regulated content of strategic noise maps.Spanish legislation RD 1513/2005 - Law 37 on the management and assessment of environmental noise, expresses the requirement to assess the adverse effects from the dose-effect relationships to be established.
Applications that analyze the noise in an urban area fall into three main areas: 1) Capture. A software that groups sonometers collected data in standardized L_Media sound levels (dB) representing values for each zone and time of day. 2) Apps. Used to obtain from population regarding perception of discomfort by using a mobile application designed for this purpose. 3) Display of noise: dynamic digital map for graphic description of the cause-effect relationship.
Our aim was to develop a program able to gather the opinion of the citizens about the noise level in different places of the city. This project is motivated by the need of determine which zones of a city could damage citizens health by incurring in high levels of noise. This is of particular interest of City Hall, council and any other public body related to the environment, heritage and culture, and health.
We present a mobile application for iOS system called iCUCHA. It is suited for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices, for which simplicity is its main characteristic. The app has been designed to gather information from the population, information regarding how people feel about the noise when they walk through streats, pass around trafic, or even when they are inside a building or a cantine.
We use the geolocation facilities of mobiles devices to track the location of the noise disturbance source. By using all the entries at our database, we are able to draw a map with the contributions of the citizens. The user not only sees its own contribution but what people feel arround him/her about noise.
We ask about noise perception, but we could also ask about polution perception, cleaning of the streats, police coverage, and so many more questions of high interest for city hall or government.
Version 1.0 IOS 5.1+
29/03/2013
More information: iCUCHA