Briefing

Managing exposure to noise in Europe

Briefing Published 24 Apr 2017 Last modified 25 Mar 2021

5 min read

Photo: © Nabeel Syed

Noise pollution poses a high risk to human health. This briefing presents updated estimates of the numbers of people exposed to environmental noise pollution in Europe. It also provides a new summary of the measures being used in Member States to manage noise. Road traffic remains by far the most important source of environmental noise: at least 100 million people are exposed to levels of traffic noise that exceed the European Union’s indicator of noise annoyance.