Building noise maps in Uruguay: a practical methodology

Uruguay is a small country in Latin America, with around 3400000 inhabitants. Its environmental legislation is still incomplete; for example, there is no national regulation on noise but only departmental Ordinances in each of its 19 Departments. Although it is well-known that they are very good management tools, noise maps are not mandatory in Uruguay. The Research Group on Environmental Noise at Universidad de la República has developed a research project that seeks the best practical methodology to build noise maps through manual measurements. The field work included the determination of the stabilization time of noise measurements, the comparison between long- and short-time measurements, the comparison between measurements taken at 1,20 m and 3,50 m, and the obtention of a national curve of highly annoyed people (%HA) with basis in the field measurements and simultaneous survey carried out on site. In this paper we present the results of these works and the proposed methodology for building noise maps throughout the country.