OMEGA consult is active also on the field of environment. We elaborate environmental impact assessments, monitor and measure environmental factors on local, national and international level when evaluating economic viability of investment projects.
MODELLING NOISE AND POLLUTANT EMISSIONS
The predominant source of noise in the wider natural and urban environment is the noise from road, rail and aviation infrastructure and noise from industrial facilities.
Environmental legislation defines permissible limits and critical environmental noise levels. The environmental impact of noise is measured with noise indicators and expressed in dB(A). Noise indicators are classified according to the time of day (day, evening, night and all day noise). Noise generated by transport infrastructure or an operating industrial facility is modelled with the software SOUNDPLAN. The software uses a 3-D model of terrain and objects surrounding the observed area to create noise emission maps for different parts of day.
1. Modeling noise emissions of road and rail traffic and industrial facilities
Process optimization of sound barriers:
Noise emissions from road traffic with different types of sound barriers:
Noise emissions of rail traffic with or without sound barriers:
Noise emissions from an industrial facility:
2. Modelling pollutant emissions of road traffic
Emissions of CO2 and PM10 pollutants along traffic routes
EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS
Considering the EU guidelines, we are trying to include as many external costs into the economic viability evaluations of infrastructure investment projects as possible. Environmental costs are a large part of the total external costs that society bares due to traffic. These are mostly air pollutants´ (e.g. NOx, HOS, SO2, PM2,5, PM10,CO2, N2O, CH4) emission costs, which are difficult to determine. For their assessment we are using programmes HBEFA 3.1, VISUM and SOUNDPLAN that calculate the quantities of dispersed particles in certain areas. Multiplication of these quantities with value assessments gives us an estimate of the external costs of air pollution.