Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

Barcelona will be hosting the next edition in 2026 and is therefore presenting some of the challenges to be tackled in such a densely populated city. At the same time, the city will be offering the talk “Bar and restaurant terraces in public streets in strategic noise maps: the need for their use. Methodology, results and comparisons”, by the City Council's Department for Environmental Evaluation and Management.

Barcelona will be taking part in a new edition of ‘ACUSTICAT, the biennial congress analysing noise pollution in Catalonia, on 24 and 25 April.

The City Council’s Department for Environmental Evaluation and Management will be directing a session at 11.15 am, with the lecture “Bar and restaurant terraces in public streets in strategic noise maps: the need for their use. Methodology, results and comparisons“.

The city is also preparing to host the next edition of this meeting, due to be held in 2026. To this end, during the closing activity on 25 April at 2.15 pm, representatives from Barcelona will be explaining the next edition of the congress, as well as the experiences of tackling noise in the city and its negative effects.

You can find the programme for the two days of the congress here.

In search of solutions to improve environmental health

ACUSTICAT is organised into three spaces and over twenty sessions and activities, with as many as 300 speakers and experts in the area of noise.

The goal of the meeting is to reflect and put forward solutions for improving noise levels and environmental health. The meeting also looks to promote measures and initiatives in the context of preventing noise pollution and the creation of calm areas, as well as dissemination, awareness and visibility for management and monitoring tools.

Another aim is to boost collaboration between administrations with different responsibilities and/or competencies in this area.

ACUSTICAT is the main activity in Noise-Free Week 2024, under the slogan “Enjoy the silence”, and coincides with International Noise Awareness Day.

Registration for ACUSTICAT is free and open to everybody, professionals in this sector and the general public. Participants can sign up using the registration form on the website, where they can also find full information on each of the sessions.

Noise pollution

Noise pollution is one of the main environmental health problems in Europe. It is caused by noise from various sources and is widely present, not just in the busiest city settings, but also increasingly in natural environments.

Negative effects for people exposed to noise pollution include threats to the well-being of human populations, a reduction in the learning capacity of young children and the high economic price that society has to pay as a result of this exposure.