A Good Practice Guide for Vibration Assessment in the System of Environmental Impact Assessment (SEIA) in Chile

Although Chile has set the limits to occupational exposure to vibration in the workplace, there are no current standards on neither human exposure to nor building damage due to environmental vibrations. It has been however a current practice to assess the vibration impacts of major projects that are evaluated through the Chilean System of Environmental Impact Assessment (SEIA) using international normative. In this context, the Chilean Environmental Assessment Service (SEA), who oversees conducting environmental impact assessment proceedings, has published in 2019 a methodological guidance for predicting and assessing the noise and vibration impacts of projects proposed in the SEIA. In this sense, it has been usual to look for guidance on the Transit Noise and Vibration Impact Assessment Manual of the Federal Transit Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Nevertheless, this manual is not always the best option to perform a correct vibration impact assessment. Thus, this paper reports a review of the major environmental vibration standards, with recommendations for use in practical cases for predicting and assessing vibration impacts of proposed projects.