THE ACOUSTIC MAPPING OF GENOA - THE RELATIVE WEIGHT OF THE VARIOUS NOISE SOURCES AND THE SPATIAL-DISTRIBUTION OF OUTDOOR NOISE-LEVELS

Genoa is exposed to a variety of major noise sources: road traffic, rail traffic, airport and harbor activities, and industrial noise. The effects of road and airport traffic noise are influenced by the hilliness of the city. Furthermore, many industrial plants and some toll motorway sections are contiguous to densely populated areas. This situation, or a substantially similar one, is characteristic of numerous European towns. Using the results of an acoustic mapping survey of the whole Genoa Commune this paper examines various noise sources with particular regard to the relative weight of each. Data have been statistically analyzed in order to evaluate the weight of the various noise sources, as a workable basis for future actions to reduce the noisiness. For some characteristic location points, the statistical properties of the time fluctuation of the road traffic noise have been investigated to establish the validity of the survey methodology used.