Noise pollution is currently a cause for concern in all industrialized countries, as it causes nuisance and negative effects on public health and the environment and therefore represents a significant reduction in the quality of life of citizens. Today, International Noise Awareness Day, seeks to raise awareness among all sectors involved in their responsibility to face the problems caused by noise in our society.
To address the damage caused by noise, the Ministry of the Environment is finalising a Noise Regulation that goes beyond the transposition of Community Directive 2002/49/EC. This Regulation complements the Noise Law 37/2003 and Royal Decree 1513/2005, which were intended to address a generalized treatment of noise pollution, with special attention to preventive action, acoustic planning in territorial planning and the incorporation of the concepts of environmental noise assessment and management.
This new regulation, the draft of which has reached a high degree of consensus with the Autonomous Communities, Local Entities, environmental NGOs and research centres, has as its basic objective the preparation of strategic noise maps that will make it possible to globally assess the exposure to noise in a given area, taking into account the economic activities that are carried out. as well as criteria of population density and proximity. In this sense, it is expected that it will be presented by the Minister of the Environment, Cristina Narbona, to the next Sectoral Conference on the Environment and to the Advisory Council on the Environment to proceed to its immediate approval by the Government.
In the same way, this next Royal Decree will comply with one of the most important aspects regarding the creation of a basic noise pollution information system, which will provide information to the public on noise in a clear and easily accessible way. This is a further step in the Spanish Government’s commitment to give effect to the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters.
