Author(s)

E. Matsoukis & D.G. Tsouka

Abstract

Corfu International Airport is located in the vicinity of the highly populated city of Corfu and next to the main national road of the island, which connects its northern with the southern part. Important environmental impacts, namely noise, have keen observed at the surrounding area of this airport due to the airport operation and the road traffic; this especially applies for the summer periods, where both seasonal air traffic peaks and road traffic peaks are being recorded. Regarding air transport, in year 2000 approximately 1,9 million passengers (out of which 90°A referred to international flights) were served. In year 2020 this number is expected to exceed the 3,0 million passengers. Major interventions and construction works are under way in this airport and in the surrounding areas, on the basis of its Master Plan design, which was recently completed [1]. In the context of this paper, the air and road traffic noise pollution impacts on the surrounding area of the Corfu airport and on the urban complex of Corfu city up to the design-year 2020 are estimated and assessed. The assessment as far as air noise pollution is concerned is based on noise recordings [2] and relative noise calculations, as produced by the Integrated Noise Model (INM) [1,3,4], a well-known and internationally widely used model. Special measures regarding operational procedures, road schemes and compatible land uses are proposed. The scope is to achieve a well – integrated and environmentally acceptable solution for the system: airport, airport road access, and urban areas, considered as a total.

Keywords