INTER-NOISE 2007

28-31 AUGUST 2007

ISTANBUL, TURKEY

Noise monitoring in the Rotterdam area

(Depreciation of house prices and health effects)

Henk Wolferta
DCMR EPA
Centre for Environmental Expertises
Noise Section
P.O. Box 843 SCHIEDAM
NETHERLANDS

ABSTRACT

In 2004 a survey has been conducted in the Rotterdam Area to determine the health effects
of noise. Besides annoyance and high annoyance also the number of sleep disturbed people
and the percentage of people suffering from hypertension caused by noise was
investigated. The survey was carried out by the DCMR Environmental Protection Agency
(DCMR EPA) in cooperation with the Rotterdam Public Health Service and the National
Institute for Public Health and Environment. A high number of annoyed en highly annoyed
people has been found during the survey. It showed that in the Rotterdam Area the
percentage of annoyed people is more than twice the number of the Netherlands. The
survey was carried out within the framework of the Environmental Monitoring Urban
Region Rotterdam which is done yearly by the Cooperative Body Environmental
Monitoring Urban Region Rotterdam. Within this body many regional public bodies are
working together to drawn up the annual regional monitoring report. In the past years not
only the health effects in the Rotterdam Area were monitored. The number of noise
complaints in general and specific for aviation noise were also monitored, as well as the
quiet areas and the numbers of houses that were built in areas with a higher noise burden
than 55 dB(A) 24 hours average value.

In 2006 the Noise Section of DCMR EPA contributed to this monitoring report with a new
issue. An estimation of the depreciation of the house prices was provided and added to the
report. The methodology which was followed was based on the principle of hedonic
pricing. The estimation showed us that the depreciation of the value of the houses was
about 2 billion (€ 2.000.000.000) or € 3800 per dwelling. In 2007 and 2008 additional
surveys will be carried out in cooperation with the Rotterdam Public Health Service. Other
investigations are planned to estimate the costs of lost space (useless for housing or other
vulnerable objects).

1 INTRODUCTION

Speaking about Noise monitoring one might think that this paper is going about
measuring Noise in the field nearby airports, noisy high- or railways or other major noise
sources, but in this paper this is not the case. This paper goes into measuring the noise
indicators that are used to report the subsequence effects of Noise. There are a lot of varying
indicators which can be used like m2 of exposed (quiet) area, length of acoustic barriers

a
Email address: henk.wolfert@dcmr.nl
alongside roads, length of constructed quiet road pavements, and amount of complaints. All
sorts of indicators like key performance indicators, process indicators and source indicators
are used in the reports about the environmental situation and trends in the Rotterdam area. In
this paper a brief glance will be given in the monitoring method that is carried in the
Rotterdam region.

Rijnmond is the region around the city of Rotterdam and its harbour. Within the
Rotterdam area 18 municipalities are situated. DCMR EPA carries out the environmental
tasks for these 18 municipalities (including the city of Rotterdam) but also for the province of
South Holland in this region. In this region about 1.2 million people are living and more than
20.000 enterprises are active, varying from a bakery or a butcher to giant refineries and
chemical industries such as the Dutch Anglo enterprise Shell as well. A lot of transhipment of
containers and minerals takes place in the Rotterdam harbour. The Rotterdam harbour is the
largest harbour in Europe and one of the largest in the world. DCMR EPA noise section
works on noise caused by industry, road and rail traffic, airports, recreational activities,
music, dance and sports events, building and construction works. More about our noise
section can be found at DCMR EPA’s website www.dcmr.nl . More about the harbour of
Rotterdam can be found at www.portofrotterdam.com

Since 1994 the provincial and local authorities in the Rotterdam area had already realised
that joint monitoring of the regional environmental situation was essential to an effective
environmental policy. Since then, thirteen MSR reports on the Rotterdam region have been
published. In the early years the environmental quality appeared to improve visibly. More
recently, however, on balance no further progress has been made. The explanation for this is
that in the nineties, the ‘easy’ environmental problems were able to be solved through
stringent source policy; the initiative at that time lay with the major polluters. As a
consequence of this the difficult problems remained problems which were mostly caused by
diffuse sources. For example noise nuisance is caused, among other things, by road and air
traffic, and industry, while shipping traffic and road traffic are important sources of air
pollution. Since there are usually a number of authorities responsible for tackling these
diffuse sources, effective cooperation between these authorities is a prerequisite.
Thus within MSR the most important authorities in the Rotterdam region environmental field
are represented. By jointly sketching an integral picture of the environmental situation in the
region in MSR, these authorities can also jointly take those measures which are necessary in
order to tackle the diffuse sources. The Rijnmond Regional Air Quality Action Programme is
a good example of this. Special attention is devoted to road and shipping traffic, and private
households, as well as to industry.

The goal of MSR is twofold. In the first place MSR aims at tracking the progress of
environmental policy in the region and indicating new developments relating to
environmental quality, free from value judgements. In this way MSR contributes to the policy
cycles of the authorities which work together in MSR. Administrators and their staff thus
obtain information which enables them to place, evaluate and, if necessary, adjust their
policy in a broader context. On the basis of this information they can also formulate new
policy or speed up its implementation. Where no verifiable policy objectives are available,
indicators in any case perform a warning function so that timely adjustments are still
possible. In the second place, MSR informs residents and the business sector about the state
of the environment in the Rotterdam region and its recent developments. In this way MSR
fulfils the obligation that authorities have, in the framework of the Aarhus treaty, to supply
environmental information to their residents. Furthermore, MSR responds to the societal need
for transparent government.

This paper only goes into the noise indicators that were reported over the past years.
Special attention will be given to the reports of 2004 and 2006. In those reports special
interest was given to Noise and Health (2004) and to Noise and the devaluation of house
prices in the Rotterdam area. This paper ends with a look ahead to the reporting activities of
the year 2008.

2 NOISE INDICATORS

2.1 Earlier reports

The first reports (2000 till 2003) comprised a lot of information about noise. Because the
acoustic zoning of industrial areas had just been finished a lot of information was available to
report. Reported was the number of noise complaint that was registered by the Central
Monitoring Room of the DCMR EPA. Separate as well consolidated noise map with the
noise contours of the noise of industry, roads, railways and airports together were reported.
The result of a survey among the citizens of the Rotterdam area that compared the annoyance
caused by noise, feelings of unsafely, stench and particulate matter was reported as well.

Figure 1: Combined Noise Map Rotterdam area

The Noise maps showed us that there was hardly a quiet place in the Rotterdam area to be
found. The whole area was covered by a blanket of noise. The most important source was
road traffic noise and this would increase more and more if mitigations stayed behind. When
comparing the complaints addressed to noise with the complaints addressed to stench and
Particulate Matter (PM) we see that noise complaints are increasing and the complaints about
PM stays at the same level. For stench there is almost the same trend as for PM. The red line
represent the noise complaints, de green line the stench complaints and the orange represent
the PM complaints. The blue line stands for the total amount of complaints.
 Figure 2: Complaints from different environmental aspects

In 2004 the noise burden was estimated in the rural quiet areas. Those areas were
designated by the province of South Holland for industrial noise and traffic noise in the
eighties. DCMR EPA found that the noise burden in those areas was relatively high
compared to other quiet areas in the Netherlands. Compared to other areas in the Rotterdam
area the noise levels in those areas were relatively low. DCMR EPA concluded that the noise
levels in these areas were very worthy to designate those areas them as quiet areas.

2.2 Noise and Health

In 2004 a special theme was chosen to report, namely Noise and Health. In collaboration
with the Rotterdam Public Health Service, the National Institute for Health and Environment
an investigation was done to the health effects of long lasting noise in the Rotterdam area.
DCMR EPA carried out all the calculations of the noise levels on centres of ZIP codes; she
counted the number of dwellings within noise classes of 5 dB and drew up the report. The
Rotterdam Public Health service however estimated the number of annoyed, highly annoyed
and sleep disturbed people and RIVM estimated the number of people that suffered from high
blood pressure.

The report describes a study to appropriate health and hygiene indicators of noise
pollution in the Rotterdam Region. Key question of the study is: 'what possibilities are there
on a regional level to monitor data concerning noise and health and their relations?'
This study was the second stage of the project 'Monitoring Environment and Health' which
was coordinated by the Cooperative Body Environmental Monitoring Urban Region
Rotterdam and commissioned by the Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and the
Environment. This part is carried out by the Public Health Service Rotterdam in cooperation
with the DCMR EPA and the National Institute for Public Health and Environment.

In the first stage of the project appropriate indicators are selected to describe the relation
between environmental indicators and health indicators on a regional level. In the second
stage of the project a pilot study is done for the Rotterdam Region on the subject’s noise and
air pollution. This paragraph goes into Noise.

As already known there is enough evidence to say that long-lasting exposure to noise can
lead to many direct and indirect effects on health such as annoyance, reduced cognitive
functioning, deviant behaviour, effects related to stress (e.g. high blood pressure) and
disturbed sleep. The study found relations between noise and high annoyance sleep
disturbance, the use of sleeping pills and tranquillizers, cardiovascular complaints,
hypertension (high blood pressure) and a recorded bad health. The effect of ambient noise on
mental health has been established insufficiently, but there are indications for an association
with fear and depression (Stansfeld et al, 2002; Smith, 2001).

The Environmental impact of noise in the Rotterdam region compared to the situation
over the whole of the Netherlands is shown in figure 3 where a comparison between the noise
pollution in the Netherlands as a whole and in Rotterdam region is given. The figure shows
that the noise pollution (in Lden) in the Rotterdam Region is higher than the average level in
the Netherlands.

Figure 3 % exposed people per class of noise pollution in the Rotterdam area versus Netherlands

According to calculations done in the Rotterdam region in 2002 traffic noise caused more
than 100,000 inhabitants of 20 years of age and older to be highly annoyed. About 3,000
inhabitants were highly annoyed by noise of rail transport and air traffic (0.3% and 0.4%
respectively). Industry caused severe annoyance for 7,000 inhabitants (1%). Measurements
showed that noise of air traffic was a serious nuisance for 21,000 inhabitants (3%). These
numbers should not be added because one person can be annoyed by several sources.

When comparing the complaints addressed to industrial noise (orange line in figure 4) and the
complaints addressed to airport noise (red line) and rest of the complaints including traffic
noise (green line) we noticed that traffic noise is not a subject of complaints contrary to
airport noise for instance. People do not often complain about traffic noise despite it is the
most annoying source of noise regarding the Noise and Health survey and other national and
international surveys. The blue line represents the total amount of complaints DCMR EPA
registered.
 Figure 14: Complaints of some kind of noise sources

2.3 Depreciation of house values

In 2006 DCMR EPA estimated the depreciation of the house values in the Rotterdam
area. The total number of dwellings in the Rotterdam area amounts to 600,000. Not all
dwellings are exposed to noise levels higher than 45 dB. Approximately 540,000 houses in
the Rotterdam area are exposed to noise levels higher than 45 dB. The distribution of these
houses per class of 5 dB is shown in the table below.

Table 1 : distribution of dwellings per noise class

Noise class Number of dwellings
45-50 dB 5,400
50-55 dB 43,200
55-60 dB 183,600
60-65 dB 216,000
>65 dB 91,800
Total 540,000

The numbers of dwellings were obtained from the noise maps that were produced within
another project that was carried out earlier (2005) by DCMR EPA. DCMR EPA assumed that
the noise situation in the Rotterdam area did not change significantly. In the 2005 project the
noise contours were calculated from roads, railway, industry and the Rotterdam Airport. A
consolidated map with cumulated noise contours was produced as well. For the estimations
DCMR EPA used the cumulated noise contours and with a GIS tool and the database of
houses in the Rotterdam region the number of houses per noise class of 5 dB was counted.
For the calculations DCMR EPA used the averaged house price in the Rotterdam region in
2005. This price (€ 213,000) was obtained from the database of the Dutch House broker
Association (www.NVM.nl). For the estimation of the cost devaluation of the houses DCMR
EPA used the method which is given in the article of the Netherlands Environmental
Assessment Agency “Stilte heeft zijn prijs “(Silence has its price) of J.Udo, L.H.J.M. Janssen,
S.Kruitwagen, 2006. The used method differs from the methods that were followed in other
international investigations because the NSDI value is used from 45 dB whereas other
investigations started from 50 dB. The motivation for starting from 45 dB was based on the
fact that high annoyance already occurs from 42 dB LDEN. The used NSDI’s (Noise
Sensitivity Depreciation Index) coefficients are shown in the table below. The NSDI for noise
levels below the 45 dB has been set on zero. Another deviation in the survey considers the
use of the same NSDI for all sorts of noise. In the Rijnmond survey has been taking for
granted that annoyance from industries is nearly the same as annoyance caused by traffic and
due to that fact the same NSDI was used for both all types of noise. Notice that the NSDI
value for noise level above 65 dB is not known and is assumed to be 1.9 as well. This means
that a slight underestimation has been accepted by the parties within the project. The NSDI
gives the number of percentages fall in value per increase of one decibel. In the table below
the NSDI is given per 5 dB.

Table 2: NSDI’s for house price devaluation

Noise class NSDI
45-50 dB 1.1
50-55 dB 1.3
55-60 dB 1.7
60-65 dB 1.9
>65 dB 1.9

The drop of the house prices for the whole region was estimated on approximately €
2.000.000.000. This means that the average house price in the Rotterdam region as a
consequence of noise is decreasing with about € 3800. Due to the increase of the traffic and
other economic activities in future the noise will increase as well if mitigations remain. This
will lead to a higher devaluation of the house prices with approximately € 70 million or € 125
per dwelling in the next 5 years.

Figure 4: depreciation of house prices in the Rotterdam area

2.4 Preview 2008 report
In 2008 there will be a new monitoring report. In that report the Noise and Health survey
of 2004 will be updated by using new insights. Beside the annoyance, high annoyance and
sleep disturbance the number of DALY’s will be reported as well. DALY stands for Disabled
Adjusted Life Years. According to the definition given by the WHO a Disability Adjusted
Life Year is a health gap measure that extends the concept of potential years of life lost due to
premature death to include equivalent years of ‘healthy’ life lost by virtue of being in states
of poor health or disability. The DALY combines in one measure the time lived with
disability and the time lost due to premature mortality. One DALY can be thought of as one
lost year of ‘healthy’ life and the burden of disease as a measurement of the gap between
current health status and an ideal situation where everyone lives into old age free of disease
and disability.

DCMR EPA and the Rotterdam Public Health Service intend to report the number of
Heart Diseases including Myocardial Infarctions due to the noise burden of traffic, railways,
industries and airports in the Rotterdam region. In three other Dutch cities such an
investigation has been planned as well to compare the findings between all the cities.

Besides estimating the effects of health, an enhanced and broader investigation will take
place to the financial effects of noise. Not only a more accurate survey to the depreciation of
house prices is going to take place but the costs of health will be estimated as well. Also the
value loss of the unusable space along roads, railways, industrial estates and airports is
planned to report. The loss of silence in quiet areas is another aspect of valuing. An earlier
investigation carried out by The Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis valued
the deterioration of the quiet areas due to the expected growth of industrial noise originated
by a new industrial estate in the Rotterdam area.

The proposed investigations will take place within the Knowledge Alliance between the
Rotterdam Public Health Service and the DCMR EPA and is planned to be carried out with a
lot of other parties like the Dutch Institute for Public Health and Environment, Erasmus
University Rotterdam, Cooperative Body Environmental Monitoring Urban Region
Rotterdam, a regional body, and many others.

3 SUMMARY
By monitoring the noise indicators during a couple of years it is possible to get insight in
the noise situation itself in decibels and in the effects of noise as well. When informing
politicians and citizens it’s proved that they do not easily understand de noise metrics - the
decibel - as a year averaged noise burden. When using other “currencies” like the amount of
the space that cannot be used for housing or industrial estates, or health effects, compared to
the effects of other common diseases politicians will get a better view. Reporting the societal
costs of noise in money will probably give the best insight. Societal costs are costs of
devaluation of house prices, costs of administration, costs of health and other economical
effects etc. In some cases the societal costs of noise are exceeding the costs of the noise
measures. In those cases it could be considered to invest in measures because there is a return
of investment! An important challenge is to relocate the savings of societal costs to the
budgets of noise measures.
4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author acknowledges the support given by Mr. R.G. de Jong retired policy officer
DCMR EPA and author of the report about Noise and Health, Mr. JP van Nieuwenhuizen for
his assistance during the editorial work and the members of the monitoring team of the
DCMR EPA for making the figures in this paper available.

5 REFERENCES
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GELUID, 2001.
[3] State of the Art of Economic Valuation of Noise; April 2004.Stâle Navrud, Department
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[4] Noise valuation practices in road project appraisal in Europe; Internoise 2003 Naples
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[5] Valuation of Transport-Related Noise in Birmingham by Bateman, Day and Lake
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[21] Website MSR team; www.hetmilieuinderegiorotterdam.nl
[22] “Stilte heeft zijn prijs“ ( Silence has its price) of J.Udo, L.H.J.M. Janssen,
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