Federal Immission Control Act

Participation rights play a major role in environmental protection. The public can add weight to environmental protection and nature conservation as subjects of public interest and serve as a counterweight to economic interests. This brings more balance to government decision-making.

Traffic noise is a serious problem in Germany, where surveys show that traffic-noise pollution has declined only marginally over the past decade. A statistically significant proportion of the German population is exposed to a sufficiently high level of noise pollution for this factor to constitute a probable health risk.