1ere des 3 journées à la conférence ALAN à Calgary. Déjà des présentations et rencontres passionnantes avec des chercheurs et membres d associations engagés…
IDA's State of the Science 2022 report is a high-level overview of the best of our scientific understanding of how artificial light at night affects the nighttime environment.
A Curation of Scientific, Technical and Societal contents available through the web on Street and Public Lighting for ten years. This content hub aggregates all aspects of knowledge on Lighting information, from History to Art, through Innovation and Design.
It adresses also global concerns from smart cities and economy to security, pollution and ecology.
"Dim the light for birds at night!" is the slogan of World Migratory Bird Day 2022 (WMBD). The aim of the campaign is to highlight the negative impact that Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) can have on many nocturnally migrating bird species. The artificial glow seems to disturb the internal system birds use to navigate during the night and causes them to stray from their normal migration routes. It has been reported that flocks of birds get trapped in ‘light cones’ causing them to circle the illuminated structures for hours or they even collide with these structures, often causing their death.
For birds migrating through the Wadden Sea, brightly lit settlements along the coastline and infrastructures, such as light houses or oil platforms in the North Sea, but also fishing vessels can pose a threat. Similarly, light pollution can have adverse consequences for many other species such as insects, bats or plants. Behavioral and physiological changes, increased predation risk or habitat loss caused by ALAN inhibit natural processes with negative effects on an individual’s reproduction or survival which may ultimately lead to population declines.
Many solutions to mitigate light pollution are already available and numerous initiatives are in place to raise awareness on this topic, also in the Wadden Sea region. In support of the WMBD campaign, the Wadden Sea Flyway Initiative and the Trilateral Dark Sky Initiative produced a short, animated video that explains the effects of ALAN on birds and illustrates how everyone can help minimize light pollution.
The introduction of artificial light at night (ALAN) into natural and urbanised landscapes is a known and highly pervasive disruptor of invertebrate communities. However, the effect of variation in intensity and spectra of ALAN on invertebrate communities inhabiting different spatial niches is little understood. Further, the remarkable ability of ALAN to continue to disrupt biodiversity even in chronically illuminated urban landscapes is not often acknowledged. Here, we simultaneously sampled airborne and ground-dwelling invertebrate assemblages under and between urban street lights to explore the effects on community composition and abundance of (a) proximity to decadal (i.e. long-illuminated) nocturnal street lighting and (b) variation in the spectral output of light. The two assemblages responded differently. For airborne invertebrates, night-time abundance doubled, and night-time assemblage composition was significantly different for traps under, compared with between, street lights. These differences in abundance were not affected by street light intensity, and were absent in day samples, suggesting that even weak ALAN may be causing short-term redistribution of nocturnal invertebrates. Further, the abundance (but not composition) effects of ALAN on airborne invertebrates increased when the street lights emitted a higher proportion of short-wavelength light. In contrast, for ground-dwelling invertebrates, we found only marginal effects of proximity and spectrum of lighting on abundance and no effect on assemblage composition. However, more intense street lighting reduced abundance and altered composition at traps both under and between lights. Synthesis and Applications. Public lighting managers must consider ALAN impacts on invertebrate communities not only when introducing ALAN to naïve environments, but also when changing lighting in areas that are highly urbanised and exposed to decades of ALAN. Further, lighting proposals and environmental monitoring of invertebrate communities must take into account the effects on both ground-dwelling and airborne assemblages, as these may respond very differently to the presence, intensity and spectrum of ALAN.
Light pollution, or artificial light at night (ALAN), is a rapidly spreading form of environmental degradation that currently covers about 50% of the United States and 90% of Europe. It can have wide-ranging impacts to nocturnal wildlife by causing changes in foraging behavior, space use,...
By Alan C. Miller Hundreds of Davis streetlights are set to be converted to energy-saving LEDs, but these lights are not the 2700k Green Cobra lamps that D
Independent lighting consultant Alan Tulla asks where the responsibility for smart streetlighting upgrades should lie, when benefits are shared by so many.
Nearly 1,000 birds were killed Oct. 4-5 when they collided with an illuminated glass building in Chicago.Though mass fatalities of this magnitude are...
The present review draws together wide-ranging studies performed over the last decades that catalogue the effects of artificial-light-at-night (ALAN) upon living species and their environment. We provide an overview of the tremendous variety of light-detection strategies which have evolved in living organisms - unicellular, plants and animals, covering chloroplasts (plants), and the plethora of ocular and extra-ocular organs (animals). We describe the visual pigments which permit photo-detection, paying attention to their spectral characteristics, which extend from the ultraviolet into infrared. We discuss how organisms use light information in a way crucial for their development, growth and survival: phototropism, phototaxis, photoperiodism, and synchronization of circadian clocks. These aspects are treated in depth, as their perturbation underlies much of the disruptive effects of ALAN. The review goes into detail on circadian networks in living organisms, since these fundamental features are of critical importance in regulating the interface between environment and body. Especially, hormonal synthesis and secretion are often under circadian and circannual control, hence perturbation of the clock will lead to hormonal imbalance. The review addresses how the ubiquitous introduction of light-emitting diode technology may exacerbate, or in some cases reduce, the generalized ever-increasing light pollution. Numerous examples are given of how widespread exposure to ALAN i
The Institution of Lighting Professionals (ILP) has launched the latest practical guidance on considering the impact upon bats when designing lighting schemes
Research from the study showed that corals exposed to ALAN are spawning one to three days closer to the full moon than corals on reefs not exposed to light.
Artificial light at night (ALAN) has been massively deployed worldwide and has become a major environmental pressure for biodiversity, especially cont…
In response to habitat fragmentation, scientific literature recommends ecological networks, which are natural areas interconnected structurally and functionally. Recently, artificial light at night (ALAN) is recognized as a new cause of habitat fragmentation. Indeed, light pollution modifies animal mobility and degrades quality of habitats used by biodiversity at night. It can be also a real barrier for some species that are not able to cross lighting areas. All those impacts imply that light pollution be integrated into ecological networks but this need raises new questions for practitioners. This article proposes some solutions to planify ecological networks integrating light pollution, from their building to their implementation. ALAN can be covered at different steps of the process : 1) to design a dark ecological network (cores and corridors), 2) to locate conflictual zones between green infrastructure and lightings or even 3) to plan actions to reduce light pollution in the ecological network. This article proposes also first indications about lighting parameters that have to be considered in an ecological network for biodiversity. Indeed, light pollution causes several kinds of problems to biodiversity that have to be translated into quantitative and qualitative variables - and next into maps - for ecological networks. Furthermore, a list of species that are particularly sensitive to ALAN should be provided to determine switching thresholds for ecological networks.
Erosion of biodiversity is mainly caused by habitat loss and fragmentation. In this situation, ecological networks, which are composed by natural zones interconnected by corridors, are an operational answer preconized by scientists and developed by governments. In France, the Ministry of environment conducts a policy, named “Trame verte et bleue” (TVB), to protect and restore a green and blue infrastructure at different spatial scales. In 2007-2010, when the strategic framework document (named “ONTVB”) was adopted, the relations between light pollution and ecological networks were still an emerging issue. But since TVB began, scientific knowledge has clearly progressed. Recently a barrier effect of artificial light at night (ALAN) has even been demonstrated as light infrastructure can’t be crossed by some animals. Then, TVB seems to be adapted to also reduce habitat fragmentation caused by light pollution. At the regional scale, planning documents (named “SRCE”) strongly underlined the issues. Even if in practice ALAN hasn’t been considered in the design of those regional ecological networks, actions have been planned to improve this point in the future. In addition, at the local scale, several projects have been currently developing by natural area managers, as national parks and regional natural parks, or by collectivities. Based on this diagnostic, this article makes recommendations to consolidate the national framework of the TVB programme to better take light pollution into account. For example, those strategic orientations could suggest a new dark ecological network (“trame noire”) and give some methodologic details about how to design it. They also might set national priority zones to protected and restore the quality of nocturnal environment.
Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa, a speaker at this week’s Maui Energy Conference, said that at some point, it will be heading in that direction as that county pursues of goal of 100-percent renewable energy.
Visit the Lux Magazine website - official publication of the Lighting Industry Association (Three ways to light public toilets http://t.co/K9tRO3oE our technical editor, Alan Tulla, considers the challenges...
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A review