A methodology to study noise annoyance and to perform Action Plans follow up using as input an existing survey and noise map: Application to the city of Malaga (Spain)

The main purpose of this work is to establish a methodology which uses the advantages of stratified sampling to study noise perception. Taking as a starting point the results of an existing psychosocial survey of a large population sample, the proposed procedure consists in stratifying the original sample into homogeneous groups (clusters or classes) as far as noise perception/annoyance, and then select some representatives within each group. Those representatives will be used for further inquiries relating to noise annoyance perception (i.e. action plans follow up) and may facilitate further data acquisition making it faster and cheaper to acquire without significant precision loss. According to the European Directive 2002/49/EC, action plans for noise perception and noise level conflicts reduction shall be based both on existing noise maps and existing psychosocial surveys. It is in this context that the proposed methodology can be useful, since it will allow action plans follow up and thus evaluate in a fast and cost effective way the impact of action plans on the population. The methodology has been applied to the Malaga psychosocial survey results and the variability of estimates when working with subsamples (representatives from each group) has been studied. It is observed that performing a stratified sampling technique on the clusters optimizes the cost/precision ratio of estimators. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.