Environmental Impacts of Airfield Operations
As air travel has increasingly grown over the last century, the planning and design of airports to mitigate environmental impacts has become an ever-increasing challenge. Air pollution and grown contamination from fuel are massive concerns for citizens in heavily populated areas that surround airports. Along with concern for environmental pollution, air traffic induced noise has become an obstacle that many airports face.
Mitigation efforts have been utilized by many airports to reduce the amount of noise affecting the population in the local area of the airport. Take off and arrival trajectory has been one of the means that airports are utilizing to reduce the effects of noise on citizens. (Visser, 2008). By adjusting the direction aircraft approach the airfield and the direction they depart can help reduce the number of individuals that are exposed to a high noise environment.
When I was stationed at RAF Mildenhall in the UK, there was an agreement between the air base and the local government that operations would be reduced (based on operational need) to reduce traffic and noise in the middle of the night. We had "Quiet Hours" from 11 pm - 7 Am. I believe this was an incredibly effective way of managing noise levels. Airports could adjust their flying window to provide a time where noise is reduced, and enforce it via fines for the respective airline who has to make an exception to the quiet hour time window.
Visser, H.G, and R.A.A. Wijnen. Management of the Environmental Impact at Airport Operations, Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest- com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/lib/erau/detail.action?docID=3019371.
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