Social survey on wind turbine noise in Japan

Wind power generation is a promising means of utilizing renewable natural sources. However, sometimes the sound from wind turbine generators causes noise problems. A committee of Research on the Evaluation of Human Impact of Low Frequency Noise from Wind Turbine Generators conducted a series of physical measurements, laboratory psychological experiments and social surveys of wind turbine noise under the auspices of the Ministry of the Environment of Japan. Among the series of studies in this project, the study of social survey is introduced in this paper. A social survey was conducted at 34 sites where there were wind turbine generators nearby (wind turbine sites) and at 16 sites where there was no effect of wind turbine generators (control sites) across Japan from Hokkaido to Okinawa Prefecture. The numbers of respondents were 747 and 332, respectively. The design of the questionnaire used in the survey and the results, including a comparison between the wind turbine sites and control sites and the exposure-response relationship of annoyance, sleep disturbance and health status in relation to wind turbine noise, are discussed.