• Noise Metrics
• Noise Contours

Sound is energy transferred through the air that our ears detect as small changes in air pressure. The more energy put into making a sound, the louder it will be. Try whispering. Then yell. You can feel how much more energy goes into yelling.

Noise is sound that is unwanted. Some sounds, like a distant train whistle, can be a pleasant sound for some, while being considered noise by others. Other sounds, like a neighbor's barking dog in the middle of the night, are more universally found to be annoying. Even sounds that are pleasant at one volume can become noise to us as they get louder. Noise, then, has both an objective, physical component; as well as a subjective component that takes account of a person's individual perception, or reaction, to a sound.

The decibel (db) is the unit used to measure the intensity of a sound. The human ear hears sound pressures over a wide range. Decibels, which are measured on a logarithmic scale, correspond to the way our ears interpret sound pressures.

Comparative Noise Levels (DBA)

The human ear also responds to different pitches or frequencies of sound differently. We are less able to hear low frequencies like the rumble of thunder but hear high frequencies like the cry of a baby more strongly.

To account for differences in how people respond to sound, the "A-weighted" scale (dBA) is used. This scale most closely approximates the relative loudness of sounds in air as perceived by the human ear and provides a more useful way to evaluate the effect of noise exposure on humans by focusing on those parts of the frequency spectrum where we hear most. The A weighted noise level has been adopted by the FAA as the accepted measure to consider aircraft noise.

For noise sources in motion, like aircraft, noise levels can change over time. For example, the sound level of a plane increases as it approaches, and then as it flies away the sound level decreases. It can be useful to measure the maximum sound level, abbreviated as L_max, of a particular noise "event." While L_max notes the moment of maximum sound level, it does not account for the duration of a sound event. The maximum sound level of a gun firing a bullet is high but very brief; a freight train can have the same maximum sound level, if you are very close to it, but the sound has a long duration.

To account for the differences in duration and loudness of sounds, different metrics are used. These metrics are used to compare individual noise events as well as many events that take place over an extended period of time.

Noise Metrics

The Sound Exposure Level (SEL) metric represents all the acoustic energy (a.k.a. sound pressure) of an individual noise event as if that event had occurred within a one-second time period. SEL captures both the level (magnitude) and the duration of a sound event in a single numerical quantity, by "squeezing" all the noise energy from an event into one second. This provides a uniform way to make comparisons among noise events of various durations.

Sound Pressure Level (SPL, dB) At One Microphone Location

The equivalent sound level (LEQ) measures the average acoustic energy over a period of time to take account of the cumulative effect of multiple noise events. This could, for example, provide a measure of the aggregate sound at a location that has airplane flyovers throughout the day. LEQ is defined as the level of continuous sound over a given time period that would deliver the same amount of energy as the actual, varying sound exposure.

Finally, the day-night average sound level (DNL) noise metric is used to reflect a person's cumulative exposure to sound over a 24-hour period, expressed as the noise level for the average day of the year on the basis of annual aircraft operations. The DNL noise metric provides a mechanism to describe the effects of environmental noise in a simple and uniform way. DNL is the standard noise metric used for all FAA studies of aviation noise exposure in airport communities. (For more on DNL, see FAA History of Noise.) DNL and the closely related CNEL metric used in California are both similar to LEQ, but they differ in how noise is treated during the evening and nighttime.

Because DNL takes into account both the amount of noise from each aircraft operation as well as the total number of operations flying throughout the day, there are many ways in which aircraft noise can add up to a specific DNL. Small numbers of relatively loud operations can result in the same DNL as large numbers of relatively quiet operations.

Equivalent Operations For DNL = 65

Back to top

Noise Contours

Noise levels can be computed at individual locations of interest, but to show how noise can vary over extended areas, noise metric results like DNL are often drawn on maps in terms of lines connecting points of the same decibel (dBA). Similar to topographical maps showing the elevation of terrain in an area, these noise "contours" are useful for comparing aircraft noise exposure throughout an airport community. The shape of noise contours depends on many factors, but are influenced by things like whether more arriving or departing aircraft are flying over an area.

Noise Contour Map

Back to top