title: On the relationship between blast noise complaints and community annoyance.
abstract: Military installations typically rely on noise complaints to indicate adverse noise environments and often restrict the firing of certain weapons to reduce the number of noise complaints. Using complaints in this manner may also imply that the absence of complaints is an indicator of low community annoyance. The relationship between individual complaints and general community annoyance, however, is currently not established, and it is unknown whether implementing restrictions in reaction to individual complaints is an appropriate or necessary way to reduce community annoyance. This paper looks at whether there are significant differences in reported annoyance to complaint-referenced blast events and general military noise annoyance between those who complain and their non-complaining neighbors. Those who complained were significantly more annoyed to both complaint-referenced blast events and general military noise in comparison to their non-complaining neighbors. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of range management.
authors: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, P.O. Box 9005, Champaign, Illinois 61826-9005, USA. edward.t.nykaza@erdc.dren.mil
authors: Edward T
authors: ET
authors: Nykaza
authors: Kathleen K
authors: KK
authors: Hodgdon
authors: Trent
authors: T
authors: Gaugler
authors: Peg
authors: P
authors: Krecker
authors: George A
authors: GA
authors: Luz
mesh_terms: D002755:Choice Behavior; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects*; D005107:Explosions; D005389:Firearms; D006801:Humans; D007508:Irritable Mood; D058749:Military Facilities; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects*; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors