Noise Levels in Falcon Landing, Katy, TX | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map

50 dBA
Average noise across Falcon Landing
Quiet office
490
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
13% of Falcon Landing residents
75 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior

This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Falcon Landing at 100-meter resolution, combining road, aviation, and rail sources. Green areas measure below 45 dBA. Orange and red exceed the EPA's 55 dBA outdoor threshold linked to long-term health effects. Use the layer toggles to view each source on its own or all together.

Overall
Road
Rail
Aviation
Falcon Landing, Katy, TX Map of Noise Levels in Falcon Landing
Click the map to explore
35 45 55 70 90
Quietest (dBA) Loudest
Colorblind friendly off

What the numbers sound like

  • 30 dBAWhisper
  • 40 dBASoft rainfall
  • 45 dBAQuiet suburban street at night
  • 50 dBAQuiet office
  • 55 dBAEPA outdoor threshold: light traffic 100 ft away
  • 60 dBANormal conversation an arm's length away
  • 65 dBABusy restaurant
  • 70 dBAHighway traffic 50 ft away
  • 80 dBACity bus interior

Population Above the EPA Outdoor Threshold

The EPA's 55 dBA outdoor reference level is a common benchmark for residential noise exposure, especially for activity interference, annoyance, and long-term community noise concerns. About 490 Falcon Landing residents, or 13.0%, live above that level. By land area, 21.8% of Falcon Landing is above 55 dBA.

See how noise in Falcon Landing compares to similar-sized neighborhoods.

Noise by Part of Falcon Landing

Average noise levels for Falcon Landing residents, grouped by direction from the center of Falcon Landing. Southern Falcon Landing carries the highest population-weighted average; Central Falcon Landing carries the lowest. Just 15% of residents in Central Falcon Landing live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, roughly the same as the share in Southern Falcon Landing.

Central Falcon Landing

49.5 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office

15% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Eastern Falcon Landing

51.5 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation

0% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Northern Falcon Landing

49.9 dBA · Mostly quiet
Quiet office

6% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern Falcon Landing

53.3 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation

14% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Western Falcon Landing

52.7 dBA · Moderate
Quiet office to normal conversation

33% of people above 55 dBA

QuietLoud

Southern Falcon Landing sounds about 30% louder than Central Falcon Landing to the human ear, a 3.8 dBA gap. Every 10 dBA roughly doubles perceived loudness. Within any of these directions, two homes a quarter mile apart can still differ by 10 or more dBA depending on how close they sit to a major highway.

How far back from do you need to be?

produces an estimated 75 dBA at its loudest centerline points. Noise drops logarithmically with distance, with the exact rate depending on what's between you and the road. Tree cover, walls, terrain, and pavement type all matter. At roughly a quarter mile back, traffic fades into the noise level of a soft rainfall.

At source
75 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
61 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
330 ft
53 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
660 ft
45 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
¼ mile
37 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall

Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 11% of Falcon Landing sits under tree canopy (lighter than most neighborhoods) and roughly 55% is impervious surface like pavement and rooftops. Both are folded into the per-place decay rate above. Heavier canopy pulls noise down faster with distance; impervious surfaces slow the drop.

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Airport Noise

George Bush Intcntl/Houston (IAH) sits northeast of Falcon Landing. The U.S. Department of Transportation measures aviation noise around this airport directly, and the model uses those federal measurements rather than synthetic predictions.

Blocks under the approach and departure paths carry combined road-plus-aviation noise, with some exceeding 75 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Falcon Landing, particularly to the southwest, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.

How Noise Is Distributed Across Falcon Landing

The bar chart below shows the share of Falcon Landing residents in each noise band. About 97% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 0% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.

How Falcon Landing Compares

Falcon Landing sits at the quieter end of the spectrum. Below: how Falcon Landing's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Memorial Parkway, Nottingham, West Memorial, and Terra del Sol.

Average noise level (dBA)

Falcon Landing's 50.3 dBA pop-weighted average is at the quieter end of the spectrum. Texas as a whole averages 50.8 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Falcon Landing because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.

Share of residents above 55 dBA

About 13.0% of Falcon Landing residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's in the middle of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 21.8% of Falcon Landing's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a Texas average of 22.8% and a national average of 28.1%.

What This Means if You're Moving to Falcon Landing

  • Distance from highways matters more than the neighborhood name. Two homes in the same zip code can differ by 20 dBA if one sits 100 meters from and the other 500 meters away. The model captures this at 100-meter resolution, so noise exposure changes block by block.
  • Tree canopy can help reduce modeled noise exposure. Roughly 11% of Falcon Landing is under tree cover (lighter than most neighborhoods), and the dominant land cover is medium-intensity developed land. Both are measured from federal USDA Forest Service and USGS satellite imagery at 30-meter resolution. Streets with 60% or higher canopy show 3 to 5 dBA lower noise than comparable streets with bare ground or pavement, which is why the per-place decay rate above already accounts for it.
  • Airport noise is directional. George Bush Intcntl/Houston's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the northeast. Neighborhoods to the southwest of downtown show no measurable contribution from the airport.

Sources & Methodology

The BestNeighborhood noise model is calibrated against nearly one million federal ground-truth measurements across four states. Road noise is computed from segment-level federal traffic data and propagated outward using physics-based acoustic decay, with attenuation rates that depend on the surrounding land cover.

Federal datasets used:

FHWA Highway Performance Monitoring System: road geometry, traffic counts, lane configuration
U.S. DoT Bureau of Transportation Statistics National Transportation Noise Map: aviation and rail noise, road calibration ground truth
USGS / MRLC National Land Cover Database: land cover and impervious surface coverage
USDA Forest Service Tree Canopy Cover: vegetation density for sound propagation
U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line: block-level geography and population
U.S. EPA Levels Document: 55 dBA outdoor reference level

All inputs are published federal datasets. Block-level noise is computed by combining road, rail, and aviation sound sources in the energy domain, the same physics used in professional environmental noise assessments. Read the full methodology.