Using artificial hills to create noise protection at Amsterdam airport

The main airport of the Netherlands, Schiphol, is located in the suburbs of Amsterdam and is one of the 5 largest airports in Europe in terms of passenger traffic and freight traffic. More than 1,000 aircraft take off and land here every day, which means that the airport needs a powerful noise barrier.

But Schiphol, located in a lowland, does not have natural hills or other noise-canceling natural objects around. In order to solve this problem, the airport management turned to a team of engineers, architects and designers. The result of their joint work was a unique park built southwest of the airport.

The rows of artificial hills 2 meters high were arranged so that they absorbed the noise waves coming from the side of the runways. Engineers calculated the optimal distance between the hills for effective noise absorption, which was 10 meters, and a total of 150 such barriers were built. In addition, several water channels were set up, which are also designed to combat the spread of noise over long distances.

An unusual site with artificial hills and canals was designed in the form of a park, which was called Butenshot. There are walking and cycling paths, trees are planted. But the most important thing is that with the help of this park it was possible to solve the main problem of suburban residents and reduce the level of noise pollution by half.