Featured projects

Technical assistance in the monitoring and quality control of strategic noise maps of highways in the Spanish network

CEDEX, the Spanish Civil Engineering Research Agency, and the Spanish Ministry for Public Works and Buildings requested the collaboration of Tecnalia's Environment Unit in the specification of a practical procedure for evaluating the acoustic quality of the resulting Noise Map; this will make it possible to verify that the Strategic Noise Maps in each phase of their development were carried out in accordance with a specific methodology, and that the final result was submitted with an optimum level of quality.

Climate change: Impact and adaptation

This project sets out to design strategies for adapting human and natural systems in response to the possible scenarios resulting from the impact of climate change in the Basque Autonomous Community (region), so that the damage is mitigated and opportunities are taken advantage of. All this is based on rigorous and accurate knowledge of the local impact of climate change on this Community’s systems.

Acoustic Design of Subsidized Housing

This project consists of a pilot experience in a property development of 5 blocks of Publicly Protected Housing (VPO) located in Vitoria-Gasteiz (Alava), in which changes have been introduced into the building of the homes with respect to the initial project, and which are designed to enhance acoustic comfort and subsequently evaluate citizen satisfaction.

Sustainable Spatial Management EKO-LURRALDEA

EKO-LURRALDEA is a strategic research project designed to conceptualize and develop, from a perspective that is transdisciplinary, involves fresh approaches, models, methodologies and tools to support the introduction and subsequent monitoring of sustainable strategies for spatial management at a local and regional level in the Basque Country. All this has a firm basis in environmental knowledge (physical, ecological characteristics, etc.) and socioeconomic ones (economic activities, urban development, social factors, etc. of the natural and built mediums and their interactions. As an oriented research project, it is based on the development of the general knowledge of the processes governing spatial behaviour and the application of this knowledge to generate tools that can be used for the taking of decisions, from an integral perspective, for sustainable spatial management.

Impact of structural railway noise

This project focuses on the impact caused by railway infrastructure noise on the population residing in the vicinity. The Urban Integration process of Railway Lines, which involves the idea of removing architectural barriers, on occasions leads to the emergence of the phenomenon known as Structural Noise. The particular features of this type of noise, associated with a non-visible source by the potential hearer (tunnel, underground), and with an excitation range displaced at low frequencies with respect to the compositions of other ambient sources, allows one to assume that the associated Dose-Effect relationship will be diverted away from those developed by the moving traffic, aircraft and even the surface railway.