An estimate of the global impact of commercial aviation noise

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2008.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-72).This study estimates the impacts of commercial aviation noise at 181 airports around the world. These airports are located in 38 countries plus Taiwan, with 95 of the airports located in the United States. They are part of the 190 Shell 1 airports in the FAA's Model for Assessing Global Exposure to the Noise of Transport Aircraft (MAGENTA), which comprise an estimated 91% of total global aviation noise exposure [FAA 2008]. The model calculates both physical and monetary impacts of aviation noise. The physical metrics are the number of people exposed to 55 dB or more noise, and the number of people highly annoyed. The model uses a noise depreciation index developed from hedonic pricing studies of housing transactions to monetize the effects on property owners in terms of housing value loss and rent changes. Due to data collection difficulties the impacts are only approximately consistent chronologically. Population data are from the years 2000 and 2001 depending on the country, while house prices and rents are 2006 estimates, and noise levels are for the year 2005. Based on there data, we calculated that around the 181 airports more than 14 million people are exposed to at least 55 dB of commercial aviation noise. Of these individuals, approximately 2.3 million are highly annoyed. We found that the noise resulted in a total of $21 billion of housing value depreciation, which is equivalent to about $1.1 billion per year using a 30-year life of the house and a 3% discount rate, and an additional $800 million of lost rent each year. The impacts are spread over all parts of the world. Although most of the airports included in this study are located in the US and Europe, each continent with an airport in the study had airports with greater than $100 million in housing value loss and greater than 200,000 exposed people.(cont.) Furthermore, North America, Europe, and Asia each had examples of airports with an estimated $80 million in annualized housing value loss ($1 billion total), 400,000 people exposed to 55 dB, and $25 million in yearly lost rent. We also examined potential changes to these impacts in the future for a scenario with no technological or operational advances to reduce noise (with the exception of retirement of older aircraft in the fleet). Based on an assumption of 2-3% annual growth rates in operations at these airports between 2005 and 2035 with no noise-technology improvements, we found that the undiscounted housing value and rent loss could approximately double by 2035 while the population exposed to 55 dB and highly annoyed could increase by about 70%. These results demonstrate the potential gains from further advances in aircraft technology and operations to mitigate community noise.by Christopher KIsh.S.M