Thu Lan Nguyen

Community response to noise in Vietnam: Exposure-response relationships based on the community tolerance level

Social surveys on noise annoyance have been conducted in five different cities in Vietnam. The surveys included both aircraft noise (three airports) and road traffic noise (five cities). The main objective for these studies was to establish dose-response functions that were representative for Vietnam. The results have been compared with results from similar surveys from other regions. Dose-response functions for aircraft noise in Vietnam showing the percentage of highly annoyed people versus the noise level are nearly identical to those presented in the European Noise Directive [European Commission (2002). http://ec.europa.eu/environment/noise/directive.htm]. For road traffic noise, however, the results indicate that people in Vietnam are more tolerant. The noise levels can be increased by 5-10 dB in order to have a response similar to the curve recommended by the European Commission.

Exposure-response relationships for road traffic and aircraft noise in Vietnam

It is necessary to assess differences in the community response to noise among countries for the effective implementation of noise policies. However, very little noise annoyance data have been accumulated in countries outside Europe and North America. Toward the establishment of a noise policy in Vietnam and to meet global interest in noise problems in Asia, socio-acoustic surveys on the community response to transportation noise have been carried out in Vietnam since 2005. A total of around 9,900 responses were obtained from these surveys. In this paper, a method of drawing exposure-response curves for noise annoyance in Vietnam is presented. Representative exposure-response relationships are proposed for road traffic and aircraft noise annoyance in Vietnam and compared with those of Europe and Korea. The results show that the aircraft noise annoyance curve for Vietnam was slightly higher than the curve obtained by the EU but considerably lower than that for Korea. Vietnamese respondents were less annoyed by road traffic noise than respondents in Europe and Korea. The frequency of use and the attitude to the benefits to society of motorbikes and airplanes were found to moderate noise annoyance in Vietnamese cities. This study also shows a method to quantify the difference in the prevalence of annoyance measured by five-point verbal and 11-point numerical scales.