ANIMA - Public version of D3.1 Study to identify the gaps – Quality of Life indicators

This document is the public version of deliverable 3.1 of the ANIMA project. It encompasses a critical review to establish the relevant indicators to be studied in WP3 on annoyance and residential quality of life and to inform WP2 'case studies' and WP4 'tool development' on the state-of-art related to quality of life (QoL). This task includes:

• Literature review to provide an overview of existing indicators for the quality of life.
• Identify gaps and lack of data for further improvements
• Alter the original experimental plans in WP3 accordingly
• Collects the findings in D3.1

For the purpose of this study, QoL is defined as the objective environmental parameters related to and a person’s subjective reflections on current and future wellbeing. Indicators for QoL can help airports and governments to assess wellbeing of its community, monitor its impact on the community and compare the impact of different intervention options. A good indicator is accurate and measurable, but mostly either within an airport’s sphere of influence or affected by the airport in a significant degree. For the compilation of the indicator database, indicators from different national and global initiatives were assessed in terms of use, relevancy and limitations. In all, 52 indicators were mapped onto 9 different dimensions of QoL.

A comparison of the available research on QoL to the present day practice of three European airports highlighted a lack of a systematic approach. However, the airports do acknowledge the need for such an approach as the historic focus on noise no longer suffices for getting and maintaining a ‘license to operate’. An audit framework was created to allow airports to handle the broad topic of QoL in a more coherent, meaningful manner.