Environmental noise impact from opencast quarries: A comparison between stochastic and deterministic approaches

This paper presents a comparative analysis between two different techniques to determine the acoustic climate in the areas surrounding opencast mines in the Lazio region of Italy. The first approach is based on determining the sound pressure level at the target points through the use of an analytical prediction model (ISO 9613) by firstly categorizing the sources that contribute to the production process. To this aim the first phase of taking measurements in the field is carried out to determine the sound power level of each source. Then on the basis of the analytical formulation of the phenomenon of propagation, taking into account the various environmental parameters, the acoustic climate is defined. Subsequently, following a second measurement campaign, in relation to the sound pressure level in the area surrounding the quarry, a geostatistic approach is proposed for the same application, thus the acoustic climate is considered as the outcome of a random process. Using the ordinary Kriging technique, through the study of the spatial variability of the phenomenon and the construction of experimental variograms, the sound levels are estimated for the geographical points in question and the results are then validated. Finally the resulting maps are compared and discussed and some parameters to be assessed are proposed in order to decide upon the most suitable method to be adopted in these circumstances.