Assessment and Management of Environmental Noise Law, 2004 (Law No. 224(I)/2004).

On a European level, a number of legislative measures have been enacted for regulating noise from various sources, such as occupational noise, noise from equipment for outdoor use as well as for the assessment and management of environmental noise. In Cyprus, the competent authority for the implementation of the law on the assessment and management of environmental noise is the Environment Service of the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment. The present law transposes European Directive 2002/49/EC, whose main aim is to define a common approach intended to avoid, prevent or reduce on a prioritised basis the harmful effects, including annoyance, due to exposure to environmental noise. To this end the following actions are progressively implemented: Determination of exposure to environmental noise through noise mapping; Ensuring that information on environmental noise and its effects is made available to the public; Adoption of action plans with a view to preventing and reducing environmental noise where necessary and particularly where exposure levels can induce harmful effects on human health and to preserving environmental noise quality where it is good; Developing of Community measures to reduce noise emitted by the major sources, in particular: Road and rail vehicles, including infrastructure, aircrafts, outdoor equipment, industrial equipment and mobile machinery. The law sets out a specific time-table for the implementation of the above.