EEA geospatial data catalogue
Potential quiet areas in Europe, based upon Quietness Suitability Index (QSI), Aug. 2016
Within the European Union, the Environmental Noise Directive (END, 2002/49/EC) defines quiet areas outside cities as those areas delimited by national authorities that are undisturbed by noise from traffic, industry or recreational activities. The report ‘Quiet areas in Europe: the environment unaffected by noise pollution,’ provides a first mapping assessment of potential quiet areas in Europe’s rural regions. Approximately 18% of Europe’s area can be considered quiet, but 33% is potentially affected by noise pollution, the report finds. This dataset underpins the assessment and is based on the quietness suitability index (QSI), which provides the overview with the highest (QSI=1) and lowest (QSI=0) proportion of potential quiet areas in Europe. The data set is provided in both GDB and TIFF formats.
Simple
Identification info
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Date (Creation)
- 2016-03-11
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Date (Publication)
- 2016-08-25
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Edition
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01.00
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Citation identifier
- eea_r_3035_100_m_quietareas-qsi_p_2016_v01_r00
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Citation identifier
- DAT-210-en
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Citation identifier
- DAT-209-en
- Point of contact
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Organisation Individual Electronic mail address Website Role European Environment Agency
Point of contactEuropean Environment Agency
Custodian
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Spatial representation type
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Grid
Spatial resolution
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Spatial resolution
- 100 m
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Topic category
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Environment
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Extent
))
Temporal extent
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Time period
- 2016-01-01 2016-12-31
Extent
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Maintenance and update frequency
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Not planned
- GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
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Area management/restriction/regulation zones and reporting units
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- GEMET
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noise type
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noise, vibrations
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noise
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- Continents, countries, sea regions of the world.
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EEA33 (2013-2020)
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- EEA Management Plan
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2016 1.1.1
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Resource constraints
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Use constraints
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Other restrictions
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Other constraints
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License CC-BY 4.0 ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Copyright holder: European Environment Agency (EEA).
Resource constraints
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Access constraints
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Other restrictions
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Other constraints
- no limitations to public access
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Language
- English
Distribution Information
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Distribution format
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GDB
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GeoTIFF
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OnLine resource
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QuietAreas_GDB
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OnLine resource
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QuietAreas_TIF
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OnLine resource
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Direct download
Data quality info
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Hierarchy level
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Dataset
Report
Result
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Title
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Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services
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Date (Publication)
- 2010-12-08
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Explanation
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See the referenced specification
Resource lineage
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Statement
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Suitable distance layer from noise sources built following a fuzzy approach (*), calculating the 'membership' to the quietness range (0–1) by means of a linear relationship, considering the mean value obtained as no suitable (= 0) and maximum distance obtained as suitable (= 1). The distance values between not suitable (mean value) and suitable (maximum value) will be reassigned with a new value between 0 and 1 following a linear equation.
(*) The production of threshold distance layers around noise sources has been made following a fuzzy approach rather than obtaining a buffer with sharp limits. Membership to a 0-1 range has been obtained according to a linear function.
Data sources:
- END: major roads, major railways and major airports noise contour maps (2012)
- END: location of major roads and major railways and major airports
- Urban morphological zones (UMZ) from CLC 2006
- E-PRTR register: industries' location and attributes: Europe-wide register that provides easily accessible key environmental data from industrial facilities in European Union Member States and in Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Serbia and Switzerland. It replaced and improved upon the previous European Pollutant Emission Register (EPER). Access 2014.
- Corine Land Cover and Land Use data 2006 (CLC) (100 × 100 m grid)
- Corine Land Cover 2000 for Greece
- EuroRegionalMap v. 6.0: roads, railways and airports infrastructure. (Version 6.0, 18.12.2012)
- The population of each UMZ in 2000 (year of reference) was added by using the last version (v. 5) of the population density grid constructed by the European Commission research centre (Gallego, 2010). Raster data on population density using Corine Land Cover 2000 inventory.
Full methodology: Good practice guide on quiet areas.Technical report No 4/2014
http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/good-practice-guide-on-quiet-areas
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Hierarchy level
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Dataset
Reference System Information
Reference System Information
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Code
- EPSG:3035
Metadata
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Metadata identifier
- e9151c34-da65-48b9-a2ca-b9b835480812
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Language
- English
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Character encoding
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UTF8
- Contact
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Organisation Individual Electronic mail address Website Role European Environment Agency
Point of contact
Type of resource
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Resource type
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Dataset
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Date info (Creation)
- 2019-03-29T13:18:03Z
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Date info (Revision)
- 2025-10-09T11:20:45.445188Z
Metadata standard
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Title
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ISO 19115/19139
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Edition
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1.0
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