Modeling activities of environmental noise in Italian Environmental Protection Agencies

The report is the first step of activities of working group ISPRA/ARPA “Modellistica Agenti Fisici” (modeling physical agents) , including ISPRA and Regional Environmental Protection Agencies of Lazio, Liguria, Lombardia, Piemonte, Sicilia, Toscana and Valle d’Aosta.
The aim of the working group is to provide a guideline on practical use of noise models and commercial previsional software. The report illustrates the state of art of their use within the Agencies: data come from a survey carried out on all the regional environmental protection agencies in order to establish experience level, employers and software availability to implement noise models and action plans.
Results show that not all 21 agencies have at least a minimal modeling experience and in particular only 9 agencies have modeled airports, 13 railways, 15 industrial sources and 17 roads. Moreover, the number of employers (overall 38 people) varies a lot within agencies and their level of experience is beginner or they are self-taught persons. Consequently, the importance and usefulness of a guideline is highlighted, especially pointing out specific problems on single sources. In fact, most critical sources have been identified as the industrial ones and railways: the first ones because of low level of expertise, despite being a main activity of environmental agencies, the second ones because of different modeling method used. This is due to the difficult application of official interim method (Directive 49/2002/EC) in Italy.
This report is a photograph of use of noise models at the control bodies level that allow to identify what should be done to improve the capabilities of the system.

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