PROCEEDINGS of the
23rd International Congress on Acoustics
9 to 13 September 2019 in Aachen, Germany

Recreational Noise Management in Turkey
Nilgün AKBULUT ÇOBAN1,2, Sezer KAYA2, Mustafa ÇOBAN2, Güray DOĞAN2
1

Antalya Provincial Directorate of Environment and Urbanization, Turkey
2

Akdeniz University, Turkey

ABSTRACT
Noise is one of the inevitable environmental types of pollution especially in densely populated urban
areas with the design approach including the recreational places within the residential areas. It is well known
that there are lots of evidence on the health eﬀects of environmental noise and to control this, theimprovements have been carrying on in both legislative basis and scientiﬁc basis. In Turkey, during theharmonization of European Directives into national legislation as a full candidate country of European Union,
2002/49/EC of Environmental Noise Directive was one of the ﬁrst ones transposed with the nameof ”Regulation on Assessment and Management of Environmental Noise (RAMEN)” in 2005. In the scope of
RAMEN, the noise criteria and evaluation procedures are identiﬁed for the main noise sources including also
entertainment places. In this paper, recreational noise management in Turkey will be explained and discussed
through giving the information on what the main environmental noise criteria for entertainment places is,which authorities responsible for noise audits are, how the procedures to take the music allowance are applied,
what requirements of technical staﬀ to conduct the environmental noise measurements and preparing thenoise assessment reports are needed.
Keywords: leisure noise, acoustic, entertainment place, movida

1. INTRODUCTION
Environmental noise is an important environmental concern especially in highly urbanized cities.
The negative health effects of exposure to environmental noise have been investigated and studied
broadly by from local to international bodies. The Report “Burden of disease from environmental
noise” published by World Health Organization (WHO) states that at least one million healthy life
years are lost every year from traffic related noise in the western part of Europe. Sleep disturbance andannoyance, mostly related to road traffic noise, comprise the main burden of environmental noise” (1).
This is also clarified by European Environmental Agency (EEA)’s reports published in 2018 which isstated that due to the traffic, more than 76 million people in the EEA -33 member countries are exposed
to high night-time noise level that is defined as Lnight above 50 dB in 7 th Environment Action Plan (2).
The night noise guideline level set by WHO in 2009 for Europe is 40 dB (3). It is seen that these aremostly based on transportation noise due to its broader effect. Both Environmental Noise Directive(2002/49/EC) (4) and EEA Report on “Noise in Europe 2014” (5) mainly focus on the noise comingfrom transportation. However, the recently published WHO Noise guideline includes two new noise
sources, one of which is leisure noise. In this extent, leisure noise means all noise sources that people
are exposed to due to leisure activities, such as attending nightclubs, pubs, fitness classes, live sporting
events, concerts or live music venues and listening to loud music through personal listening devices(6). Although such type of noise pollution affects fewer people in specified areas when compared toother type of noise sources, the local authorities have to provide great effort to manage the leisurenoise due to increasing noise complaints of residents nearby such entert ainment places.
In recreational noise pollution, the climatic and touristic characteristic of the cities is needed to be1

nlgn.akbulut@gmail.com

327

considered as the increasing factor in the magnitude of noise levels and the disturbance level ofresidents. The countries with coasts have challenges in this issue and researches on recreational noise
pollution have been starting to be conducted more in latest years (7, 8). Most of the researches onrecreational noise conducted in recent years generally focuses on the determination of th e noise levels
coming from the entertainment places (9, 10, 11) and the little one focuses on the control strategies forleisure noise from the point of the environmental noise management (12,13). The same situations havebeen encountered in Turkey especially in coastal cities with special features in terms of climatic,
touristic, historical and geographical aspect. In order to protect the public health from the impact ofhigh level of noise pollution, both administrative with legal restraints and awareness campaigns havebeen conducted.
This paper presents recreational noise management in Turkey and it is discussed through giving theinformation on what the main environmental noise criteria for entertainment places is, whi chauthorities responsible for noise audits are, how the procedures to take the music allowance are applied,
what requirements of technical staﬀ to conduct the environmental noise measurements and preparing
the noise assessment reports are needed2.

MAIN LEGISLATION ON RECREATIONAL NOISE AUDITS

2.1 Responsible Authorities on Environmental Noise Audit
Main legislation on environmental noise control in Turkey is Regulation on Assessment andManagement of Environmental Noise (RAMEN) (date of official gazette (04/0 6/2010 with amended
18/11/2015) and the main authority at national level on this legislation is Ministry of Environment and
Urbanization (14). As a full candidate country of EU, this regulation was firstly driven into force in
2005, harmonized with the EU Environmental Noise Directive (2002/49/EC). After 2005, thisregulation was amended in 2008, 2010, 2011 and finally in 2015 in order to solve the problems facedwith during the applications. RAMEN includes the definition of responsibilities and related authorities,
acoustic criteria for land use planning, acoustic report format, qualifications for the organizations andagencies, which will prepare acoustic report, environmental noise assessment report, noise maps andaction plans and responsible authorities for preparing noise maps and action plans, noise measurement
procedures and methodology with referring to ISO standards and the limit values for noise sources astransportation (road/railways /aircraft/waterways), industrial plants, workplaces, air conditioners,
electric generators and entertainment venues.
In RAMEN, entertainment venue is defined as a workplace operating within an accommodation
facility independently, which offers live music to meet the entertainment needs of customers and thelive music in this definition refers to the type of music made by real instruments and/or audio orvideotape using electronically amplified sound source. As it is seen there is dilemma on the term of“live music” definition between the real meaning and the meaning referring at this regulation. This ismainly due to the requirement of use of the same terms in two regulations as RAMEN and Regulation
on Working License.
The entertainment venues are audited in the scope of environmental noise whether scheduled orunscheduled, or to assess noise complaints within the framework of RAMEN. These shall be
conducted by- Municipalities to which transfer of authority have been made in accordance with theEnvironmental Law for complaints within municipal boundaries and adjacent area. These
municipalities should establish environmental management department with minimum two staff
who are required to participate to the training course on environmental noise provided by theinstitutions whose qualifications are determined by Ministry. In addition to responsibility of
public noise complaint audit, Municipality with authority on environmental noise should evaluate
the environmental noise level assessment report prepared for music allowance of entertainment
places.
- In the case of Municipality does not have authority on environmental noise, Provincial
Directorates of Environment and Urbanization (PDEU) carries on noise audits for public noise
complaints and it should evaluate noise assessment reports under RAMEN. and send its official
opinion to Municipality.

328

2.2

Environmental Noise Audit Procedure for Recreational Places
The audits are mostly carried on due to public noise complaints from the neighbors living nearby
the recreational places. The complaints are appealed to related authority via formal letter, e -mail, or
call center of Ministry. The general approach for the assessment of public noise complaints could besummarized mainly under six titles given as following;a) Registration: The public noise complaint was registered formally at institution and sent to thetechnical staff who should audit.
b) Election Criteria: The noise source stated in the complaint is evaluated whether it is in thescope of Environmental Noise Regulation (RAMEN) or not. If it is not in the scope of
RAMEN, the formal letter is sent to the citizen to inform him/her for applying the otherrelated public body. If it is in the scope of RAMEN, it is taken into audit programc) Preparation for Audit: The audit is planned with two technical staff whose qualification isavailable for this audit and the plan is structured based on the complaint letter inclu ding whichplace and at which time the citizen is mostly annoyed.
d) Audit in Situ-Noise Measurement: The audits for the noise complaint is basically based on theenvironmental noise measurements and the articles defined in RAMEN regarding the music
allowance document, opening-closing time of music activity, the layout of noise sources, etc.
The environmental noise measurement is conducted in the place mostly at the complainant’s
home or in front of the building of where the person mostly annoyed. Since the evaluation ofnoise limit values for entertainment venues is based on the differentials of noise levelmeasured in two conditions according to the RAMEN, mainly two environmental noise
measurements are conducted. The first one includes the environmental nois e level including
the noise source complained is working on and the second measurement is conducted when thenoise source complained is not working, which is the noise level to get the backgroundenvironmental noise level.
e) Reporting in situ: after the two noise measurements in the exposed building, the technical staff
wrote the minute (official report) in the facility that was complained. The official report signedby the facility owner and the technical staff includes data on the noise measurement levels andthe situations detected during the audit. One copy of the formal letter and the output of thesound level meter is given to the entertainment venue.
f) Evaluation in the office: The noise levels measured during the audit are assessed whether it iscomplying with the regulation or not by the same technical staff. If the noise levels exceed thelimits defined in the regulation, the administrative sanction is applied to the entertainment
venue and the informative and warning formal letter is sent to the enter tainment venue
including the amount of administrative sanction and warning to take the necessary precautions
to decrease the noise levels.

3.

MAIN REQUIREMENTS OF RECREATIONAL PLACES

3.1 Music Allowance Procedure of Recreational Places
In Turkey, the music allowance to the entertainment places is provided by Municipalities inaccordance with the provisions of By-Law on Starting Business and Work Permits entered into force
by the Council of Ministers Decree dated 14.07.2005 and numbered 2005/9207.
The entertainment venues which are intended to have music activity should firstly have “Opening
and Working License for Workplaces” which is provided by Municipality. In the second stage aftergetting opening and working license, the entertainment venue should take “music allowance document”
from Municipality. In order to take this allowance, the operator of that venue makes “Environmental
Noise Level Assessment Report” prepared by competent laboratories and this report assigned to
Municipality which gave the working license of that venue. This report is assessed by Municipality if
it has authority on RAMEN. If Municipality has not authority on RAMEN, then Municipality sends
this report to Provincial Directorate of Environment and Urbanization (PDEU) and it investigates thisreport according to the principles of RAMEN and the formal decision letter on this report is sent toMunicipality. At the end of this process, if all the situations regarding the noise levels and the otherelements based on Regulation on Working License and RAMEN, Municipality give the music
allowance to that entertainment place.

329

3.2 Environmental Noise Criteria for Entertainment Venues
In order to get music allowance, the entertainment venues should comply with t he criteria defined
under RAMEN, which are needed to be reported on “Environmental Noise Level Assessment Report”
submitted to Municipality. The main criteria for entertainment places under RAMEN is given below asfollows;- The environmental noise from entertainment venue/s adjacent to the exposed building shall not
exceed the background noise level in the exposed building in L eq .
- The environmental noise from entertainment venue not adjacent to the exposed building shall not
exceed the background noise level in the exposed building more than 5 dBA and 7 dBC in L eq .
- The total level of environmental noise emitted from more than one entertainment venue shall not
exceed the background noise level more than the range of 7-10 dB in Leq . dB(A) and 9-12 in
Leq dB(C). Taking this range as basis, total level of environmental noise shall be determined by
the Decision of Provincial Committee of Environment, taking into consideration the factors suchas number of people in the area exposed to noise, the distance between noise -sensitive spaces andsource of noise. In case of exceeding the limit values given in this sub-paragraph, eachentertainment venue which contribute to the background noise level shall be responsible forexceeding limit value. After the determination of the noise contribution rate, each business shalltake the necessary measures.
- Live music in open and semi-open entertainment places operating in areas where there aresensitive uses is prohibited between 24.00 and 07.00. During other time, they continue activities toensure limit values specified in above.
These criteria are all questioned in the environmental noise level assessment report which has
structured report format identified by Ministry under RAMEN. It includes mainly 5 parts as follows;
General information on the entertainment place such as the noise sources; the building structure of the
facility, the nearby buildings affected from its noise; Information on noise measurements such as themeasured level, measurement conditions, devices and calibration information; Evaluation of noise
measurements; Measures to be taken for noise control; Annexes as calibration certificates of noise
devices, training certificates of staff conducting noise measurement, certificate of laboratory
conducting the measurements, layout plan for noise measurement points.
3.3

Technical Staff Qualifications for Environmental Noise Evaluations
In Turkey, the technical staff and the measurement laboratory should have adequate qualifications inorder to conduct environmental noise measurements and report preparation for music allowance
document. The staff working on competent laboratory on environmental noise shall have the training
certificate on environmental noise measurements. They should participate into the standardized
training course given by the institution, which has protocol with Ministry on giving such training
program. That protocol also includes the qualifications of the trainers who should have theprerequisites as follows;- He/she has PhD. on acoustic and vibration and he/she is still working on this field.
- He/she has applicable studies on noise measurements/insulation/noise mitigation.
- He/she is capable of using environmental noise measurement device and of using thecomputational methods on this.
There are mainly 6 certificate/training programs as listed below;- A1: Introduction to Acoustics and Field Measurements (max. 15 hours)- A2: Engineering Acoustics (includes noise measurements and preparation of noise assessment
reports) (max. 30 hours)- B1: Noise Report and Noise Mapping for Industrial Plants (max. 36 hours)- B2: Traffic Noise Mapping and Reporting (max 30 hours)- C1: Building Acoustics (max. 30 hours)- C2: Noise Action Planning (max. 40 hours)
Those who will prepare environmental noise level assessment reports for businesses andinstallations, factories, facilities, enterprises, entertainment venues, etc. not included in under the
Regulation on Environmental Permits and Licences shall be graduates of engineering, architecture andscience faculties of universities. Moreover, they shall have the level of expertise to conduct these330

works. Technical staff should have certificate of A1 if they only perform noise measurement, but inorder to elaborate reports they must have, at least, A2 certificate.
The laboratory carrying on these shall have pre-qualification/competency certificate to be obtained
from the Ministry according to measurement standards specified for the businesses as TS ISO 1996-2
and TS 9315 (ISO 1996-1). From the point of environmental noise audits to the entertainment venues
by the local authority as Municipality or PDEU, minimum two technical staff should carry on the noise
audit. One of them should be four-year university degree and the other staff could be 2-year university
or high school degree. At least, one of the staff should have A1 training certificate on environmental
noise measurement.

4. DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONSAs a full candidate country of European Union, Turkey have been making significant progress oncomplying with EC Law. Environmental noise management is one of the most important achievementson this way. Environmental Noise Directive (END) 2002/49/EC was transposed to Turkish National
Legislation with a name of “Regulation on Assessment and Management of Environmental Noise(RAMEN)” firstly in 2005 and this was amended in 2008, 2010, 2011 and lastly in 2015 in order tomake this legislation more applicable. Although it is harmonized with END, it also includes the
additional provisions like noise exposure categories for land use planning, criteria for expertise on
environmental noise, criteria for evaluation of noise audits and sanctions. designation of competentauthorities responsible for strategic noise maps and action plans, noise limit values for transportationand industrial sources and workplaces, facilities and also for recreational places which is not addressed
in END.
This type of noise pollution has getting more apparent especially in coastal cities of Turkey withspecial features in terms of climatic, touristic, historical and geographical aspect . Specifically, thelocal authorities in coastal side of the country have been given great effort to reduce the noise pollution
coming from the recreational places through the intensive noise audits. However, it is seen that the
public noise complaints have been still increasing. Therefore, only the noise audits by local authorities
finalized with administrative sanctions is not enough to provide healthy acoustic environment in a long
period. There is need to improve more smart and sustainable solutions for this problem (15). Most of
the European cities have also the same challenges due to the recreational places in city centers called
as movida. Both local authorities and researchers have been trying to propose new approaches on thisfield. For instance, in Fimiani and Luzzi’s study, new control system based on a network of low costsensors and on a participatory definition of limits was proposed for Bologna of Italy (10). Konya Cityof Turkey have been using noise monitoring system since 2015 and the main objective is to evaluate
the mostly annoying sound levels in challenging areas and to provide public information and to informthe owner of the recreational places in order to take administrative precautions by itself (15). In
Ottoz’s study, it is declared the need to an active city planning with a purpose of win-win solution for
all the movida stakeholders. Moreover, it is recommended that the evaluation of external cost of noise
pollution through cost-benefit analysis, which is required by Environmental Noise Directive, should
also be applied for the recreational noise (12). This issue was also addressed in Azam’s research,which is stated that cost pricing of environmental problems may provide lots of benefits in a way thatminimizing environmental pollution lead to maximizing the financial gaining for tourism sector (16).
In the study focusing on Malaga’s recreational noise management, It was emphasized that conducting
temporal monitoring campaign with several communication actions increase awareness among
stakeholders to take their support on the planning and prioritization of further noise mitigations (13).
As it is suggested in Bollesterus study, the recreational noise pollution does not only consist of theleisure or music activity in that venue but also includes the people staying the outside of that place andthis study highlighted the importance of people behavior and education in silent attitudes (9).
Therefore, during the recreational noise management, it has to be considered wide spectrum
stakeholders including the owners of the entertainment venue who choose the technology and the typeand design of the activity, its customers who are only willing to entertain, the neighbors who areexposed from that recreational noise and the local authority who should provide balance between all
citizens and the city under lots of legislation applied by technical and administrative staff. At tha t point,
the vocational skills of staff working on environmental noise management is very necessary toconstruct the strong bridge between the citizens and the city authorities. The Noise Training Project(NTP) financed by EC under Erasmus+ Program has been implementing in order to improve thevocational skills on environmental noise management and to develop sharing of good practices331through the partnership between European countries as Turkey, Italy and Spain . With NTP, it is aimed
to develop curriculum content on environmental noise and the handbooks on legal, technical andcommunicative aspects of environmental noise management and the entertainment venues are
specially take part on these handbooks (17).
As in the control and management of all type of environmental pollution, there is need to focus on
prevention of pollution at the source. At that point, the legislation on urban planning and workplaceallowance needs to consider acoustic quality of environment by integrating, cooperating andsupporting each other. Municipalities as local authority having responsibility on giving working
permission license to the recreational places should play role intensively in environmental noise audits.
The stakeholder from the operator of recreational place to the neighbor near this premise and thecustomer and from the technical staff to the policy makers is needed to be aware of this type ofpollution and give importance in management process in a smart and sustainable way. There is needto give necessary importance for supporting and improving the researches and the projects on thisissue.

REFERENCES
1. World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. Burden of disease from environmental noise
quantification of health life years lost in Europe, Joint Research Center, 2011.
2. European Environment Agency. Population exposure to environmental noise.2018
3. World Health Organization. Night noise guideline. Geneva, Switzerland, 2009.
4. European Parliament and Council. Directive 2002/49/EC Relating to the Assessment and Managementof Environmental Noise; Publications Office of the European Union: Brussels, Belgium, 2002.
5. European Environment Agency. Report Noise in Europe 2014; No 10/2014.
6. World Health Organization. Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region;
Copenhagen, Denmark, 2018; ISBN 9789289053563.
7. Asensio C, Arcas G, Gasco L. Lopez JM, Alonso J, Antonio R, Castillo A, Herrans C, Luis MM.
Recreational noise assessment in Malaga. Proc ICSV23; Athens 2016.
8. Victoria State Government, Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Live Music andEntertainment
Noise,
Planning
Practice
Note
81,
2016,
https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/_data/assets/pdf_file/0024/13479/PPN81-Live-Music-and-Entertainment -Noise_September-2015.
9. Ballesteros J, Fernandez MD, Ballesteros AJ. Acoustic evaluation of leisure events in two
Mediterranean cities. J Applied Acoustics. 2015; 89:288-296.
10. Fimiani F, Luzzi S. Monitoring and reducing noise related to movida: Real cases and smart
solutions. Proc. ICSV22; July 2015:1959–1965.
11. Ottoz E, Rizzi L, Nastasi F. Recreational noise: impact and cost of movida for disturbed residents
in Italy. Proc. Internoise 2016: 7284-7293.
12. Ottoz E, Rizzi L, Nastasi F. Recreational noise: Impact and costs for annoyed residents in Milanand Turin. J.Applied Acoustics. 2018 (133): 173-181.
13. Asensio C, Gasco L, De Arcas G, Lopez JM. Assessment of residents’ exposure to leisure noise in
Málaga (Spain). J Environments 2018; 5(12): 134.
14. Turkish Oflcial Gazzette. Çevresel Gürültünün Değerlendirilmesi ve Yönetimi Yönetmeliği
(18.11.2015. http://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/). 2015.
15. Akbulut Çoban N, Dalkılıç C, Kaya S, Tükmenoğlu M, Çoban M. Smart solutions for recreational
noise pollution in Turkey. J Noise Mapping; 2018; 5(1): 21-32.
16. Azam M, Alam, M, Hafeez MH. Effect of tourism on environmental pollution: Further evidence
from Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. J Cleaner Production; 2018; 2018(190); 330-338.
17. Akbulut Çoban N, Asensio C, Bellomini R, Carfagni M, De Arcas G, Bartalucci C, Borchi F, Kaya
S, Luzzi S, Pavon I, Trujillo JA. Improvement of environmental noise management skills on
Audits: first results achieved in the frame of the Erasmus+ Project on Noise Training, Proc
Internoise2019; Madrid, Spain June 2019.

332