I’m sure many of us are familiar with solutions to reduce light pollution such as to turn off lights when not in use and to switch to more shielded light sources. However in this post we will take a look at more novel ways to reduce the impacts of light pollution in different cities. These include tangible technical solutions as well as the more intangible aspects through spreading awareness. 

 

Barcelona and motion sensitive light 

Endesa, a district built for innovation in Barcelona has installed a wireless system to manage the city’s infrastructure. One of its innovations to reduce the impact of light pollution is its motion sensitive LED lamp posts. Each lamp post contains a video sensor which detects movement and presence and controls the amount of light required accordingly in advance. With this system, Barcelona not only helped to reduce the effects of unnecessary artificial light at night, it also managed to reduce its power consumption by 30%. Take a look at the video below for more details on how Barcelona’s motion sensor light works!

 

Dark Sky Parks

According to the International Dark-Sky association (IDA), an International Dark Sky Park is a land that has exemplary qualities of nocturnal environment, starry nights and is also well protected in terms of its scientific, natural, educational or cultural heritage. Land, whether publicly or privately owned, can be recognised as an IDA Dark Sky Park. One of the goals of the IDA Dark Sky Park includes spreading awareness and protection and recognising the importance of dark skies to the general public and surrounding communities. 

 

To apply for this scheme, cities also need to send in their lighting inventory, which is a formal audit of all artificial outdoor lighting in a park. The parks would need to meet the standards of the Lighting Management Plan that will be approved by the park’s management. Some of the guidelines include: 

• All outdoor lighting features above 500 initial lamp lumens must be fully shielded
• Visitor activity with regard to the addition of unnecessary artificial lighting at night into the park environment must be regulated 
• Lighting must be chosen to minimise the amount of short-wavelength light emitted into the atmosphere

The above is a picture of the first Dark Sky Park in Scandinavia, located in Møn, an island in Southeastern Denmark. Apart from stargazing, the park also arranges night walks for its visitors to learn about the importance of darkness as well as the serious consequences that light pollution can have on human health and livelihoods of animals and plants. 

 

Copenhagen Light Festival (REST 2020)

As ironic as it might seem, this art installation at the Copenhagen Light Festival aims to spread awareness of the effects of light pollution in cities. 

The exhibit, called REST, allows visitors to experience first hand the human effects of usage of artificial night light, specifically blue light which is generally disruptive to the sleep patterns of both humans and animals. As visitors walk through the exhibit, the originally orange glowing  acrylic rods turn blue when visitors are in close proximity to the rods, symbolising how human activity is the one that has led to a negative impact on organisms’ day-night cycle. Click on this link to find out more about the exhibit. 

On the whole, there are relatively few large scale campaigns which tackle the problem of light pollution specifically, however as we have seen from these examples, more and more countries have innovated and thought of innovative and alternative ways to reduce as well as spread awareness of the effects of light pollution. Beyond just turning off lights that are not in use, there is more than can be done to combat light pollution. 

 

Stay tuned for more!

Jean