Identification Of Quiet Areas In Hamburg

A growing concern especially in big cities like Hamburg is noise pollution. Of particular importance is noise from transport and therefore also addressed by Directive 2002/49/EC, known as the Environmental Noise Directive (END). However legislation not only aims to reduce noise pollution but also highlights the need to preserve areas that are currently unaffected, the so called quiet areas. It is shown the way how the administration in Hamburg defines and preserves environments with good acoustic quality although there is only a vague definition within the law. Based on preparatory work since 2008 several criteria were developed to get diverse options which were discussed between members of different duties in the administration. For the identification and selection of quiet areas not only acoustic factors as shown in noise maps are important. Additional criteria apart from sound-pressure were considered. These are for example general utilization, social and recreational values, dimensions and at last other sources of disturbance such as noise caused by vacation activities. As a result two categories of quiet areas are described and represented in a map.