In What Ways Airports Directly/indirectly Affect the Environment?

Question: In what ways airports directly/indirectly affect the environment? Discuss how environmental impacts are related to economics. You may wish to research and consider the various benefits and limitations of noise mitigation techniques.

Plan:

Intro – What are the impacts of air transport on the environment?

Link with how it is an economic concern.

Introduce the noise mitigation methods

Development – various methods – their benefits & limitations

BE CRITICAL

Conclusion

        Air transport and aviation in general is considered as one of the most growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, at a global scale, aviation is responsible for climate change.

Airports operations affect the environment in several ways:

• Noise pollution: most important impact at a local scale
• Air pollution (gas emissions)
• Water pollution: especially through the use of chemical products at the airport
• Waste of energy and water: to start and clean the aircrafts a lot of resources are used and wasted.
• Airport Land use (deforestation, earthwork, etc.)

At a local scale, noise is the most important impact to be considered. It is an issue for people living around the airport. According to Shipper et al (1998), “noise nuisance around airports has become one of the most important environmental issues in terms of public concern and policy attention.”

In order to reduce the noise impact that airports have within their region, several methods have been implemented.

First, the technology used in aircraft engineering has been developed. In fact, “the development of aircraft noise emissions” statistics provided by CFD – Software E+F GmBH Berlin, show that aircrafts have been quieter since 1950. Indeed, from 1950 to 2010 the Effective Perceived Noise in Decibels (EPNdB) has decreased by -80% thanks to the advanced technologies used within aircrafts.

Also, in order to manage efficiently the impact of aircraft noise, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), has introduced a range of noise categories for aircrafts called “chapters”.

Progressively from 1971 to 2006, commercial aircrafts were required to meet the ICAO noise certification standards in order to be able to operate. From 1st January 2006, all new aircraft must comply with chapter 4 standards of ICAO which implies that the aircraft do not exceed 270 EPNdB.

Alternatively, airports have also implemented a range of techniques aiming to mitigate the noise emissions of their operations, these can be classified into 3 groups as follow: