ABSTRACT
The awareness that noise is one of the main environmental problems in Europe was probably well known by the local policy makers and local communities before the presentation of the Green Paper on Future Noise Policy of the European Commission (1996), but, without any doubt, this document has represented a milestone as far as it stated that the “local nature of noise problems does not mean that all action is best taken at local level” and that a “framework based on shared responsibility involving target setting, monitoring of progress and measures to improve the accuracy and standardisation of data to help improve the coherency” is needed to have a successful noise abatement policy.1
