News Published: 05 Mar 2020

Critical Assessment of the Best Practice for Balanced Approach Implementation

March 5, 2020

What did the ANIMA project do so far?

 We conducted research at 13 case study airports, including in-depth interviews with noise stakeholders, to develop rich, contextual case studies about how airports were implementing noise abatement interventions. 

Specifically, we investigated the processes that underpin best practice implementation via the following phases: 

  • Identification of the need for an intervention 
  • Development of intervention options 
  • Selection of the chosen intervention 
  • Implementation of the intervention 
  • Post-Implementation Evaluation (including the use of non-acoustic factors and quality of life indicators) 

The results of the analysis will help to inform the development of a best practice portal for airports. 

Key Findings

1. Larger airports tend to have more robust processes. 

2. Communication and engagement with all stakeholders is essential to the successful implementation of a noise abatement intervention, and across all implementation stages. The concept should be fully integrated as a central component of the Balanced Approach to ensure that both noise exposure, and noise impact is reduced. 

3. Balanced Approach interventions are typically implemented in silos and not integrated with others. 

4. Land-use planning is an important but under researched area.