Port noise impact and citizens' complaints evaluation in rumble and mon acumen interreg projects

After the publications of the European Environmental Noise Directive in 2002, many noise maps and action plans, as well as a consistent number of scientific papers, emerged for roads, railways, airports and industrial noise. Unfortunately, noise produced by ports in their surrounding areas seems to be forgotten at present, even though there could be many areas affected by it. Relevant attention from authorities and scientific community seems to be devoted to noise produced underwater for its interference with wildlife, rather than noise produced in the urban portion, that is causing disturbance and consequent complaints by some citizens. The INTERREG Maritime projects MON ACUMEN and RUMBLE aim to study noise originating from port activity in order to assess the currently unexplored situation and then identify solutions for a long-term environmental sustainability. More specifically, RUMBLE aims to effectively and efficiently implement small mitigation interventions, while MON ACUMEN will gather the preliminary knowledge on the issue of noise generated by ports. In this context, questionnaires submitted to north Tyrrhenian port authorities concerning the description of the port area, the present monitoring systems, the measurement campaigns and acoustics maps performed are discussed. Furthermore, by analyzing the citizen's complaints where present, the critical aspects of the analyzed ports will be studied