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WHO. World Health Organization. |
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To evaluate outdoor noise the World Health Organisation, WHO stipulates that to protect the majority of the people from being seriously annoyed during the day time, the sound pressure levels on balconies, terraces and outdoor living areas should not exceed 55dB LAeq for steady continuous noise. At night, sound pressure levels at the outside facades of living spaces should not exceed 45 db LAeq, to allow people to sleep with a bedroom window open. Guidelines values for community noise in specific environments, Geneva 1991. |
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| Specific environment | Critical Health effect(s) | LAeq (dB) | Time base | LAmax, fast |
| Outdoor living | Serious annoyance, daytime and evening | 55 | 16 | - |
| area | Moderate annoyance, daytime and evening | 50 | 16 | - |
| Dwelling, | Speech intelligibility and moderate | 35 | 16 | |
| indoors | annoyance, daytime and evening | 30 | 8 | 45 |
| Inside bedrooms | Sleep disturbance, night-time | |||
| Outside bedrooms | Sleep disturbance, window open (outdoor values) | 45 | 8 | 60 |
Guidelines values for community noise in specific environments. Sound ordinances which define acceptable noise level criteria are there to create and maintain a relaxing environment to live in, the main purpose of this is that levels must be kept low enough to avoid complains from the community. The WHO guidelines are a rather blanket statement that takes no account of an existing acoustic environment, ideally it would require all acoustic environments to be within these limits and on going legislation and plans for noise mapping is a step towards this goal. BS4142:1997 should be used with reference to the above and any decisions on noise nuisance or reduction of such should attempt to work within the aims of both standards and accept any flexibility this offers. BS4142:1997 is often more stringent than the WHO Guidelines. What Surveys or Assessment are compared against WHO guidelines? WHO can be used in many areas where noise either is or will be considered to be a problem. The following are the most common applications: As an indicator for planning applications, where a BS4142 survey is not possible, that the existing acoustic environment will not be affected by the new proposed commercial activity, plant, or industrial use. It should be noted that a lot of UK standards such as PPG24 or BS8233 incorporate the World Health Organisation guidelines within their criteria in one form or another.
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