2019-04-18 Ordinary Meeting Agenda

ORDINARY MEETING AGENDA                                                                 18 APRIL 2019


3.    Noise issues arising from the proposed flight paths
Airport activities are inherently noisy operations due to the operation of jet aircraft, helicopters etc.
Noise and its impact on people is measured by decibels (dBA). For airports, one industry standard
approach is to measure the number of days that an area will be impacted by a noise of 70dBA. For
example, an area that will be impacted by noise reaching 70 dBA more than 10 times will be identified
as N70 equals 10.
What does 70 dBA mean?
Noise and its impact on people is affected by a range of environmental considerations including
wind, topography, cloud levels etc. As such, a noise level cannot be considered absolute but is a
guide to the potential impact on residents. Decibels are not a linear scale i.e. as the decibel number
increases, there is an incremental increase in impact. There are a range of examples of descriptions
as to what each increment of decibel means. Set out below is one example:




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