Environmental noise management and sustainable urbanization

Each day 180,000 people are moving into urban areas. As a society develops, it increases its level of urbanization and industrialization and the extent of its transportation system. Each of these developments brings an increase in noise load. A major contribution to noise exposure comes from the sound emissions of vehicles, which are commuting over large distances every workday. There is a direct relationship between the level of development in a country and the level of noise impacting on its people. Without appropriate intervention, the noise impact on communities will escalate. Sustainable urbanization means the application of the concept of sustainable development to the field of urban planning. Six basic principles are being applied in order to achieve sustainable urbanization: Compactness, completeness, conservation, comfort, co-ordination and collaboration. However, sustainable urbanization is more than the application of these basic principles. It has also to do with resource limits, avoidance of their exhaustion and mitigation of environmental pollution. Environmental noise management can contribute to achieve these goals. In this paper the linkage between environmental noise management and sustainable urbanization is elaborated. The paper develops a framework on how environmental noise management can contribute to sustainable urbanization.