Objective To evaluate the implementation effectiveness of Health Protection Zone Standards for Industrial Enterprises by Noise (GB/T 18083-2000).

Methods A stratified convenience sampling approach was used to select 1033 enterprises from the textile, machinery, light industry, and other sectors across China that were subject to the above standard and operational from 2001 to 2022. An investigation was conducted on the distances of the nearest ESPs surrounding these enterprises and the citation of health protection standards in environmental evaluation documents. The distance distribution of ESPs across various industries were analyzed, and the applicability of evaluation standards within these industries was assessed. The Kruskal-Wallis test was employed to compare the distance distributions of ESPs across enterprises, while significant differences were further examined using Dunn's test with appropriate corrections. Additionally, the chi-square test was used to assess the qualified rates for health protection distances across industries and standard applicability. When significant differences were observed, the Marascuilo pairwise test was utilized.

Results The qualified rate for health protection distances among the surveyed enterprises was 77.3%. Specifically, the qualified rates for the machinery, light industry, other sectors, and textile were 78.7%, 77.2%, 76.9%, and 64.2%, respectively. No significant differences were observed in the health protection distance qualified rates across these sectors. Furthermore, no significant difference was found in the distance distribution between ESPs in wind turbine manufacturing and steel rolling enterprises with a recommended protection distance of 300 meters. However, a significant difference was observed in the distribution of health protection distances across five types of enterprises: coal briquette factories, flour mills, forging factories (equipped with steam hammers), automobile modification factories, and tractor factories, each having a recommended protection distance of 200 meters (χ²=55.56, P < 0.001). The differences in the distribution of health protection distances are statistically significant between a coal briquette processing plant and the forging plant (with steam hammer), the special-purpose automobile modification plant, the tractor factories, and medium to large flour mills (all adjusted P-values < 0.001). There are also statistically significant differences in the distribution of noise-sensitive point distances between the forging factories (equipped with steam hammers) and automobile modification factories, the tractor plant, and flour mills (adjusted P-values are 0.023, 0.003, and 0.003, respectively). With the exception of these, between all the other pairs, differences are not statistically significant (P>0.05).The standard citation rate of the surveyed enterprises was 10.6%. There were no significant differences in the standard citation rate across the three types of machinery enterprises, textile enterprises, and other types of enterprises with citation rates exceeding 10%, as well as across three types of machinery enterprises and four types of light industry enterprises with citation rates below 10%. The light industry had a slightly higher standard citation rate than the machinery, and there were five types of machinery enterprises that did not cite the standards.

Conclusion The industrial enterprise directory outlined in GB/T 18083-2000, along with the recommended health protection distances, has become outdated in light of the current noise pollution associated with industrial enterprises. Therefore, it is imperative that the standard revision be initiated as soon as possible.