INERCO Acústica participates in the development of the strategic noise map of the city of Niš (Serbia)

INERCO Acústica has participated as a key expert in the development of the Strategic Map of the City of Niš, a pioneer experience in the implementation of the CNOSSOS-EU: 2015 method, which also included the latest amendments proposed by ISO/DTR 17534-4 and the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment of the Netherlands. This methodology for assessing environmental noise in European cities has been mandatory since 31 December 2018.

The project, coordinated by the American engineering multinational AECOM, has focused its efforts on transposing Serbian legislation into environmental and climate change standards sponsored by the European Union, as well as strengthening institutional capacities to implement, develop and apply the environmental legal infrastructure, especially in the areas of waste management, water management and urban wastewater treatment.

Among the five Serbian cities that were above the identified dimensional thresholds, Niš was selected to develop the Pilot Project; this was also because of the availability of reliable and up-to-date input data. In fact, one of the objectives of this project has been to bring together local experience and offer a methodology that can be replicated in the other four cities.

Specifically, the studied area covers 166 km², with a total population of 222,500 inhabitants and more than 100,700 homes.

According to Álvaro Grilo, a key expert in Noise Monitoring in this project, the work carried out has allowed the Serbian authorities to advise on designing measures to reduce the noise caused by roads, trains and airports, as well as the noise of industrial activities as required by Directive 2002/49/EC.

In this regard, the Strategic Map of the city of Niš has also been prepared according to the European Environmental Noise Directive as a pilot experience for the future implementation of these regulations throughout the Republic of Serbia.

INERCO Acústica has proven experience in international projects in the field of noise mapping, such as that developed for Turkey (EuropeAid/131352/D/SER/TR) from 2015-2017, in which a total of as many as 14 maps in other cities were developed, with a population of more than 30 million inhabitants.

This project, one of the largest of its kind in the world, also included the Istanbul noise map, the first comprehensive one to be carried out in one of the most populous cities on the planet (13 million inhabitants).