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Resolution 1776 (2010)1

Noise and light pollution

1. The Parliamentary Assembly notes and
deplores the fact that the continent of Europe is particularly
affected, in environmental terms, by both noise and light
nuisances.

2. It refers in this connection to the World
Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines for community noise,
which were intended to provide legislative guidance without
binding effect in themselves, and European Union Directive
2002/49/EC relating to the assessment and management of
environmental noise, proposing a common approach by member
states and requiring strategic noise mapping and introduction
of action plans in the countries of the European Union.

3. The Assembly recalls that noise pollution
may have many causes: mobile mechanical sources (chiefly motor
vehicles and aircraft); fixed mechanical sources (machines,
factories, etc.); one-off or ongoing operations and work sites
(quarrying); public demonstrations and events (one-off or,
less often, ongoing: celebrations, fireworks, festivals,
concerts, places of musical entertainment and stadiums);
animal sources (barking, noises from livestock farms,
shelters, etc.); the neighbourhood (buildings with poor
soundproofing, lawnmowers, children, accidentally triggered
alarms); portable audio devices and mobile phones on public
transport, etc.

4. Its effects can be serious, possibly
disastrous for the environment overall, through disturbance of
ecosystems (terrestrial as well as marine and aquatic), but
also through the development of pathologies in mankind.

5. As to light pollution, the Assembly
emphasises that the Starlight Declaration, signed by UNESCO in
1992, seeks chiefly to preserve an “unpolluted” night sky, and
hopes that similar provision will be made in all national
legislations.

6. Furthermore, light pollution affecting
flora and fauna poses one of the worst threats to urban
biodiversity, but above all has harmful effects on the human
metabolism.

7. Moreover, the energy consumption caused by
excessive lighting has indirect implications for the
environment, for example pollution associated with the
production and transmission of that energy.

8. The Assembly, bearing in mind the
Stockholm Declaration of 1972, adopted by the United Nations
Conference on the Human Environment, which expressly
acknowledged the link between protection of the environment
and human rights, its
Recommendation 1863 (2009) on environment and health:
better prevention of environment-related health hazards and
its
Recommendation 1885 (2009) on drafting an additional
protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights concerning
the right to a healthy environment, invites member and
non-member states to find a common approach for combating the
harmful effects of noise and light pollution by taking
measures aimed at:

8.1. introducing threshold values for noise
and light into environmental medicine, imposing penalties for
offenders and establishing maximum reference values for noise
in connection with the WHO guidelines;

8.2. creating permanent observatories for
noise as tools for aiding decision making and public
information, as well as regional observatories for light
covering the entire territory;

8.3. disseminating the findings of noise
pollution observation in real time, as is often the case with
air pollution or road traffic;

8.4. developing plans for preventing and
combating noise in all municipalities in the same ways as
urban development plans and encouraging participative
arrangements;

8.5. taking account of noise “peaks” and
event noise indicators to complement energy level indicators,
to better reflect the nuisance levels expressed by
communities;

8.6. establishing a classification of rolling
stock, along the lines of the International Civil Aviation
Organization classification of aircraft, and further
tightening constraints in relation to noise emissions;

8.7. rationalising lighting in all
municipalities by preparing plans with participation by
scientists – particularly astronomers – and associations for
the protection of the environment and the sky and defining
maximum lighting levels for roadways and sky;

8.8. controlling light spillage from all
properties;

8.9. standardising and simplifying noise and
light pollution indicators as an indispensable means of
understanding the respective issues by the general public;

8.10. extending high environmental quality
standards to noise and light;

8.11. studying noise and light issues on
school curricula and educating the public, especially young
people who are particularly exposed to high-level noise in
places of entertainment or from listening to excessively loud
music through earphones.

9. The Assembly also invites member and
non-member states to:

9.1. frame policies to reduce traffic and
convert it to soft modes, by means of urban planning,
taxation, vehicle technology, individual and collective
behaviour, etc.;

9.2. assist and support economically weak
sectors (such as rail freight) that work towards noise
abatement;

9.3. promote co-ordinated noise/energy
intervention in housing stock, based on suitable training of
the trades concerned and collective projects covering
districts or building complexes, ensuring that all regulations
are rigorously enforced and that the threshold levels are
respected, and take appropriate measures if these prove to be
ineffective;

9.4. involve acoustic technicians in all
major development projects;

9.5. make acoustics part of architects’
training;

9.6. support efforts to achieve noise
abatement in the transport sector, particularly regarding
goods trains (by using long welded rails, and preferably by
using disc brakes), resurfacing of roads and the development
of soft transportation modes;

9.7. abate or even eliminate light pollution
from public lighting by using directional low-pressure sodium
lamps and presence detectors, and exploiting natural
light;

9.8. integrate noise and light pollution
problems into programmes geared to aiding research and
technological development.

1. Text adopted by the
Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly, on
12 November 2010 (see Doc.
12179, report of the Committee on the Environment,
Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs, rapporteur: Mr R.
Huseynov). See also
Recommendation 1947 (2010).

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