DOT OA:

Federal Aviation Administration

Preliminary Title:

Dynamics of land use, noise and local development

Subject and Purpose:

Although the number of people exposed to significant aircraft noise levels in the U.S. was reduced by about 90% between 1975 and 2005, airport noise restrictions and public complaints continue to grow.  In fact, while U.S. Federal investment in local noise mitigation has increased five fold, at the same time airport noise restrictions have grown ten fold.  Land-use planning and encroachment are important factors that influence community noise impacts and complaints. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is pursuing research under the Partnership for Air Transportation Noise and Emissions Reduction (PARTNER) Center of Excellence to gain a better understanding of airport encroachment patterns, determine factors which fuel encroachment, identify factors which influence the generation of noise complaints, and explore the feasibility of defining an “encroachment metric” for use in predicting community noise concerns. The project involves extensive field study and subject interviews.  This research may result in a set of recommended encroachment metrics and recommendations that must be subjected to peer-review as the findings are expected to have a clear and substantial impact on important public policies or private sector decisions of high public interest, the definition for influential scientific disseminations.  A work product on land use should be available to initiate the peer review process in FY 2007.   Additional products on other metrics may be available for peer review in FY 2008-2009.

Is this dissemination likely to be

(check one)

Highly influential scientific information

Influential scientific information

Peer Review Plan: 

The Peer Review Plan is still being developed.  The preliminary plan includes the following elements:

(1)   The peer review would occur in the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2007.

(2)   This review would most likely be conducted by individual letters.  The PARTNER Center of Excellence, which operates independently of the FAA, will be charged with facilitating the peer review.

(3)   Public comment is extremely important for this work product.  The details of the plans for public comments are being refined.  There will be opportunities for public comment on the work product through symposia and public meetings. 

(4)   All public comments will be made available to the peer reviewers

(5)   We expect to have more than 10 peer reviewers.

(6)   The peer reviewers should have expertise including, but not limited to, land-use, encroachment, planning, psychoacoustics, noise measurements, noise regulations, noise metrics and annoyance models, sleep disturbance, noise impact on learning, and statistics.

(7)   The plan for selecting the peer reviewers is still under development.  Reviewers will be designated by an outside organization (most likely PARTNER in collaboration with its Advisory Board).

(8)   The plan to nominate peer reviewers is still being developed. Scientific and professional societies and the public could be asked to nominate peer reviewers.

Contact person:

Dr. Lourdes Maurice

E-mail:

Lourdes.Maurice@faa.gov

Phone:

(202) 493-4293