Cucurachi Stefano, Heijungs Reinout, Ohlau Katrin
Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Leiden University, P.O. Box 9518, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands.
Institute for Energy Economics and the Rational Use of Energy (IER) Department of Technology Assessment and Environment (TFU), Universität Stuttgart, Heßbrühlstraße 49a, D-70565 Stuttgart, Germany.
Int J Life Cycle Assess. 2012;17(4):471-487. doi: 10.1007/s11367-011-0377-4. Epub 2012 Jan 11.
Several damages have been associated with the exposure of human beings to noise. These include auditory effects, i.e., hearing impairment, but also non-auditory physiological ones such as hypertension and ischemic heart disease, or psychological ones such as annoyance, depression, sleep disturbance, limited performance of cognitive tasks or inadequate cognitive development. Noise can also interfere with intended activities, both in daytime and nighttime. ISO 14'040 also indicated the necessity of introducing noise, together with other less developed impact categories, in a complete LCA study, possibly changing the results of many LCA studies already available. The attempts available in the literature focused on the integration of transportation noise in LCA. Although being considered the most frequent source of intrusive impact, transportation noise is not the only type of noise that can have a malign impact on public health. Several other sources of noise such as industrial or occupational need to be taken into account to have a complete consideration of noise into LCA. Major life cycle inventories (LCI) typically do not contain data on noise emissions yet and characterisation factors are not yet clearly defined. The aim of the present paper is to briefly review what is already available in the field and propose a new framework for the consideration of human health impacts of any type of noise that could be of interest in the LCA practice, providing indications for the introduction of noise in LCI and analysing what data is already available and, in the form of a research agenda, what other resources would be needed to reach a complete coverage of the problem.
The literature production related to the impacts of noise on human health has been analysed, with considerations of impacts caused by transportation noise as well as occupational and industrial noise. The analysis of the specialist medical literature allowed for a better understanding of how to deal with the epidemiological findings from an LCA perspective and identify areas still missing dose-response relations. A short review of the state-of-science in the field of noise and LCA is presented with an expansion to other contributions in the field subsequent to the comprehensive work by Althaus et al. (2009a; 2009b). Focusing on the analogy between toxicological analysis of pollutants and noise impact evaluation, an alternative approach is suggested, which is oriented to the consideration of any type of noise in LCA and not solely of transportation noise. A multi-step framework is presented as a method for the inclusion of noise impacts on human health in LCA.
A theoretical structural framework for the inclusion of noise impacts in LCA is provided as a basis for future modelling expansions in the field. Rather than evaluating traffic/transportation noise, the method focuses on the consideration of the noise level and its impact on human health, regardless of the source producing the noise in an analogous manner as considered in the fields of toxicology and common noise evaluation practices combined. The resulting framework will constitute the basis for the development of a more detailed mathematical model for the inclusion of noise in LCA. The toxicological background and the experience of the analysis of the release of chemicals in LCA seem to provide sufficient ground for the inclusion of noise in LCA: taken into account the physical differences and the uniqueness of noise as an impact, the procedure applied to the release of chemicals during a product life cycle is key for a valuable inclusion of noise in the LCA logic.
It is fundamental for the development of research in the field of LCA and noise to consider any type of noise. Further studies are needed to contribute to the inclusion of noise sources and noise impacts in LCA. In this paper, a structure is proposed that will be expanded and adapted in the future and which forms the basic framework for the successive modelling phase.
人类接触噪音会产生多种损害。这些损害包括听觉影响，即听力损伤，还包括非听觉生理影响，如高血压和缺血性心脏病，或心理影响，如烦恼、抑郁、睡眠障碍、认知任务表现受限或认知发育不足。噪音还会干扰日间和夜间的预期活动。ISO 14040也指出，在完整的生命周期评价（LCA）研究中纳入噪音以及其他发展程度较低的影响类别很有必要，这可能会改变许多现有LCA研究的结果。文献中已有的尝试主要集中在将交通噪音纳入LCA。尽管交通噪音被认为是最常见的侵扰性影响源，但它并非唯一会对公众健康产生有害影响的噪音类型。要全面考虑LCA中的噪音，还需考虑其他多种噪音源，如工业或职业噪音源。主要的生命周期清单（LCI）通常尚不包含噪音排放数据，且特征化因子也尚未明确界定。本文旨在简要回顾该领域已有的研究内容，并提出一个新框架，用于考虑LCA实践中可能感兴趣的任何类型噪音对人类健康的影响，为在LCI中引入噪音提供指导，分析现有数据，并以研究议程的形式探讨还需要哪些其他资源才能全面涵盖该问题。
分析了与噪音对人类健康影响相关的文献，同时考虑了交通噪音以及职业和工业噪音造成的影响。对专业医学文献的分析有助于更好地理解如何从LCA角度处理流行病学研究结果，并确定仍缺少剂量反应关系的领域。在Althaus等人（2009a；2009b）的全面工作之后，对噪音与LCA领域的科学现状进行了简要回顾，并扩展到该领域的其他相关研究。基于污染物毒理学分析与噪音影响评估之间的类比，提出了一种替代方法，该方法旨在考虑LCA中的任何类型噪音，而不仅仅是交通噪音。提出了一个多步骤框架，作为将噪音对人类健康的影响纳入LCA的方法。
提供了一个将噪音影响纳入LCA的理论结构框架，作为该领域未来模型扩展的基础。该方法并非评估交通/运输噪音，而是类似于毒理学领域和常见噪音评估实践相结合的方式，专注于考虑噪音水平及其对人类健康的影响，而不论产生噪音的来源。由此产生的框架将构成开发更详细的数学模型以将噪音纳入LCA的基础。毒理学背景以及LCA中化学品释放分析的经验似乎为在LCA中纳入噪音提供了充分依据：考虑到噪音作为一种影响的物理差异和独特性，产品生命周期中应用于化学品释放的程序是在LCA逻辑中有价值地纳入噪音的关键。
考虑任何类型的噪音对LCA和噪音领域的研究发展至关重要。需要进一步开展研究，以推动将噪音源和噪音影响纳入LCA。本文提出了一个结构，该结构将在未来进行扩展和调整，并构成后续建模阶段的基本框架。
