Research article

COMPLIANCE INDICATOR OF MAXIMUM PERMISSIBLE NOISE EMISSION STANDARDS: A CASE STUDY IN CALLE 13 BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

Sonia Lucila Meneses Velosa1, Astrid del socorro Altamar Consuegra2 , Leyla Nayibe Ramirez3

Online First: November 08, 2022


Urban growth generates negative externalities such as environmental impact. These impacts are mainly associated with air quality, but the effect of prolonged exposure to noise is generating health effects in Bogotá, manifested in sleep disturbances and psychological effects. In this sense, the proximity of people to road axes that intensively transport merchandise constitutes an important source of exposure. For this purpose, Calle 13 was defined as the object of study, since it is the most important road axis compared to the volume of trucks [1], where 28% of the city's cargo circulates. It was defined that the way to measure the impact of noise emission was to obtain an indicator of compliance with the maximum standards allowed for noise emission based on current national regulations. To achieve this objective, secondary information was obtained from the measurements made on Calle 13, information taken from the Secretary of the Environment of Bogotá, for the period June 2019 to June 2021. The data was processed according to annexes 2 and 3 of the Resolution 0627 of 2006 of the Ministry of the Environment. 35,000 data were processed with statistical tools, and we calculated the weighted equivalent continuous corrected sound pressure level value, where sound pressure is in decibels (db). To describe the behavior of the noise emission in the road axis of Calle 13, through the development of control charts, cluster identification with matrix of hour-of-day crossed with day of the week, we developed an Evaluation Indicator of compliance with Maximum permissible standards for noise levels on the road axis of Calle 13 in Bogotá. Additionally, the SNM maps (strategic noise maps) were analyzed to identify the impact ratio in 200 meters around the road axis. It was concluded that the noise emission of Calle 13 does not meet the maximum permissible limit and there are areas that, regardless of the time of measurement and the day of the week, are exposed to noise emissions greater than 80 decibels, which is considered dangerous. It is urgent to incorporate into public policies the possibility of intervening in traffic noise sources and to measure this pollution systematically. Lastly, protection measures against this type of contamination must be implemented, such as tree and bush belts along the road, engineering actions such as gabions, berms and acoustic isolation, as well as improving the architectural characteristics of the environment.

Keywords

Pollution, Road axis, Traffic noise, Compliance indicator, Maximum permissible limit.