Spatial Analyses in the Planning of Quiet Areas: A Case Study of Radom and Lublin (Poland)

The 2020 Environmental Noise in Europe report shows that a vast majority of European countries have legal definitions of quiet areas and criteria for their designation. As much as 60% of them have designated at least one quiet area in their territory and have taken measures to protect the acoustic climate in these areas. In Poland, although the instrument was introduced in the national environmental legislation, guidelines for delimitation have not been defined yet in the form of a binding legal act. The objective of this article is to propose the method for identifying quiet areas through spatial analysis and present it on the example of two cities—Radom and Lublin. These cities represent different approaches to the designation of quiet areas. This work is a continuation of the survey conducted and published by the authors in 2023. At the outset, the legislation and literature on the subject were analysed. Based on that, the conditions that potential quiet areas must meet were determined. Spatial analyses were then conducted for the quiet areas proposed earlier in the survey and in the environmental noise programme to see if the criteria selected by the authors were actually met in these areas: acoustic, functional, related to land cover, size, as well as temporal, spatial and transport accessibility, and location, including distances from areas with the highest noise emissions and adequate population density. Quiet areas are forest areas, public green areas, and surface water areas with recreational functions. The criteria for the elimination of the selected quiet areas were mainly location related (distance from main roads and population density). The accessibility of the quiet areas is also important. A method devised by the authors enables the delimitation of quiet areas in cities. Furthermore, this method is primarily based on publicly available data, which makes it applicable to other cities as well.