Aircraft Noise Disclosure—Avoiding ‘Surprise Noise’

‘Aircraft noise disclosure’ is a term usually associated with giving advice on aircraft noise exposure levels to prospective house buyers. However it goes much further than this.

The aim of aircraft noise disclosure is to help noise sensitive persons avoid finding themselves in a situation where they are unknowingly exposed to aircraft noise.

That is, the aim is to help them to avoid ‘surprise noise’. Experience has shown that ‘surprise noise’ is likely to be particularly annoying since it is usually associated with people believing that they have either been given misleading information or have had important information withheld from them.

Sydney Airport : Jet Flight Path Movements
1 Jan 2007 to 31 Dec 2007, All Jets

Software

The Department has developed a suite of software applications to enable aircraft noise disclosure information to be rapidly produced for individual airports. In particular, the Transparent Noise Information Package (TNIP) facilitates the production of the noise information.

Publications

Aircraft Noise in Australia: A Survey of Community Reaction.

In 1982, the National Acoustics Laboratories released a major study regarding the impacts of aircraft noise on residential communities in Australia. The results were subsequently used in framing relevant Australian Standards and land use planning controls around Australia’s airports still applicable today.

[PDF: 2007 KB]

Discussion Paper on Expanding Ways to Describe and Assess Aircraft Noise.

A number of new ways to describe aircraft noise have been developed in recent years in response to public requests for more comprehensible aircraft noise information. These are described in a Discussion Paper released by the Department entitled ‘Expanding ways to describe and assess aircraft noise’.

ONLINE
Or download [PDF: 2337 KB]

Guidance Material for Selecting and Providing Aircraft Noise Information.

The Department and the Australian Government environment agency (known as ‘Environment Australia’ at the time of the publication) jointly released this document in response to feedback received on the ‘Expanding Ways’ Discussion Paper. It is designed to provide guidance to airports and other bodies producing and disseminating aircraft noise information.

ONLINE
Or download [PDF: 2070 KB]

Discussion Paper—Going Beyond Noise Contours, Local Approaches to Land Use Planning around Smaller Australian Airports

The paper has been released by the Department to stimulate discussion on ways in which current approaches to land use planning around smaller Australian airports can be enhanced.  The paper describes weaknesses that have been identified with current approaches and puts forward a number of alternative ideas that have the potential to be of benefit.

[PDF: 2602 KB]

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