Investigation of the relationship between aircraft noise and community annoyance in China.

A survey of community annoyance induced by aircraft noise exposure was carried out around Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport. To investigate the relationship curves between aircraft noise and the percentage of "highly annoyed" persons in China and also to get annoyance threshold of aircraft noise in China. Noise annoyance induced by aircraft noise exposure was assessed by 764 local residents around the airport using the International Commission on Biological Effect of Noise (ICBEN) scale. The status quo of aircraft noise pollution was measured by setting up 39 monitoring points. The interpolation was used to estimate the weighted effective continuous perceived noise levels (LWECPN) in different areas around the airport, and the graph of equal noise level contour was drawn. The membership function was used to calculate the annoyance threshold of aircraft noise. Data were analyzed using SPSS 16.0 and Origin 8.0. The results showed that if LWECPN was 64.3 dB (Ldn was 51.4 dB), then 15% respondents were highly annoyed. If LWECPN was 68.1 dB (Ldn was 55.0 dB), then 25% respondents were highly annoyed. The annoyance threshold of aircraft noise (LWECPN) was 73.7 dB, while the annoyance threshold of a single flight incident instantaneous noise level (LAmax) was 72.9 dB. People around the airport had felt annoyed before the aircraft noise LWECPN reached the standard limit.