More than 50 % of the German population feels annoyed by noise. Annoyances through road traffic noise make up two thirds, followed by aircraft noise, living noise and leisure noise as well as industrial noise. This is the result of the ever increasing need for the carriage of goods and passengers and the dense spatial intertwining of noise-producing and noise-sensitive uses.

It is mostly impossible to separate the different uses from each other and to maintain efficient noise protection distances as the territory available for settlement purposes is restricted.

This is why the federal government attaches great importance to preventive and active noise protection measures, which can be realized through methods of planning, preferring it to the otherwise remaining passive noise protection measures. This procedure works against the emergence of conflicts between economic and leisure activities as sources of noise on the one hand and healthy living on the other hand.

The federal government's target is to permanently reduce the number of people exposed to and affected by noise and therefore improve their quality of life. Noise maps for particularly affected areas are to serve as a basis for selective and efficient noise reduction measures.

The best noise protection measure is to prevent noise or to reduce it at its source already. But not all noise-producing activities in everyday life can be prevented or prohibited.

This is why preventive noise protection in urban land-use planning and mutual consideration as for the authorization of development proposals have to be important factors. A set of regulations for the evaluation of the numerous situations and sources of noise was developed to meet this requirement.

This website, which was created in the context of the federal government's noise protection concept, describes existing regulations, differentiates between their scopes and clarifies differences and coherences.

It also gives basic information on the methods of noise determination and evaluation especially for city planning measures and for the evaluation of the permissibility of development proposals.

This website also gives indications of how to pre-estimate the noise situation with the help of the procedures described in the manual. Nevertheless, it will still be necessary in many cases to determine the noise situation and required control measures through an expert opinion. The online version of the Noise Manual for Urban Development wants to form the basis of decision-making and working procedures.