Tag Archives: buiometria partecipativa

A Winter Fest where things happen, if at all, in the Summer

[TO BE TRANSLATED]

Musica, fotografia, open data, monitoraggio del cielo notturno e pici all’aglione: tutto insieme senza fare indigestione.

Se avete fretta, saltate direttamente alla pagina del Festival d’inverno in Val di Farma. Altrimenti, mettete un po’ di sottofondo soft, e procedete:

I canaloni sul torrente Farma in autunno (foto A. Giacomelli, 2016)

Dal 17 al 19 dicembre 2016 la bassa Toscana ospita un evento forse non inedito, ma senz’altro particolare. Proponiamo un festival d’inverno nella periferia di un territorio che d’inverno offre molto meno che d’estate, quando il turismo stimola nei dintorni una programmazione culturale  sempre notevole, ma a volte con sovrapposizioni che alla fine danno un eccesso opposto rispetto alle altre stagioni.
Vi aspettiamo in Val di Farma, a metà strada fra Siena e Grosseto o -come diciamo agli stranieri- some 100 km South of Florence, ripensata in un momento di primavera 2015 anche come “la valle che non c’è“.

Il Festival d’inverno in Val di Farma proporrà

  • cinque momenti di musica dal vivo
  • una serata di fotografia
  • presentazioni di carattere culturale e scientifico.

…senza trascurare la necessaria componente enogastronomica, che va anche un po’ da sé, date le cose bòne che si mangiano e bevono da queste parti.

La manifestazione si svolge in una graduale transizione dalla valle  e Grosseto.

I primi due giorni saranno centrati prevalentemente sulla parte rurale della storia, mentre lunedì le attività si sposteranno sul capoluogo maremmano, con alcune stazioni intermedie lungo il percorso (in via di definizione).

La musica

Sabato 17 dopo cena si esibiranno gli Officina e i Regars da Chiusdino (SI), già nota per ospitare nei paraggi il Mulino Bianco di barilliana memoria. Sono due cover band di varie fasce di età che apriranno le danze con successi dagli anni ’60 in qua.

Domenica 18 la questione si fa più composita. Ad aprire le performance, alle 18 il rientro sulle scene di Pietro Crivelli, alias Peter Seeds. Già nella prima formazione degli Whisky Trail, Peter è poi uscito dal gruppo per un giro del mondo durato 40 anni e che lo ha portato dal 2011 a stabilirsi a Piloni.  Il clou della giornata sono gli Etruschi from Lakota, da Montecastelli Pisano, in Val di Cecina. L’indicazione geografica tipica non deve indurre in localismi: gli Etruschi suonano in tutto il centro-nord Italia -senza timore di andare al Sud non appena ne avranno l’opportunità- e stanno ultimando la produzione del loro terzo album. Con riferimenti musicali che vanno da Rino Gaetano ai Led Zeppelin, cantano testi in italiano che hanno a che fare con questioni di identità rurale, fuga dei cervelli, contadini magri. E lo fanno in modo non cupo e non didascalico…oserei dire nemmeno tanto “indie”…insomma sono così come li sentite…un po’ etruschi e un po’ from Lakota.
Una parte della band si tratterrà poi a Torniella per una sorta di “buongiorno” di lunedì 19 (il programma di questa parte del festival è in via di definizione).

Oltre alla musica suonata, c’è la “musica che gira intorno”: la maggior parte degli eventi si svolgeranno nello stabile della Filarmonica di Torniella, inaugurato nel 1912, e dove tuttora la banda del paese (di oltre 30 elementi, di cui almeno 25 residenti) si esercita tra un’esibizione e l’altra. Nel corso delle giornate sarà quindi possibile visitare gli archivi della Filarmonica, che contengono strumenti, spartiti, locandine di vecchie manifestazioni, fotografie dagli anni ’20 in poi e alte testimonianze.

Cultura popolare, scienza, tecnologia e ambiente

Nel corso del festival questi elementi si fondono. Prima con due presentazioni che si terranno dalle ore 21 di domenica 18: verrà anzittutto presentata la prima versione della “mappa di comunità” della Val di Farma, in cui capocaccia e cercatori di funghi hanno integrato sin dagli inizi del 2015 le basi cartografiche ufficiali della Regione Toscana con punti di interesse a loro noti (sorgenti, antichi orti, rifugi di guerra, per citarne alcuni).
Nella stessa occasione si farà il punto del progetto di BuioMetria Partecipativa, nato in Val di Farma nel 2008 e poi diffuso su scala nazionale e con varie collaborazioni internazionali, e si affideranno alcuni sensori (i buiometri) a cittadini che nel corso del 2017 svolgeranno misure di inquinamento luminoso in varie parti d’Italia.
Si darà poi un’anteprima della programmazione 2017 delle associazioni che animano il festival (Attivarti.org e la Filarmonica di Torniella anzitutto, senza trascurare le altre realtà sul territorio) della stima delle risorse necessarie per realizzare il programma previsto, e del come sostenere queste attività.

Nella coda grossetana di lunedì 19, il testimone passa a Maurizio Bacci, ospite dell’associazione fotografica Riflessi di Grosseto. Questo evento è spiegato nel dettaglio in un precedente articolo.

Mangiare, bere, uomo, donna

Vado a memoria, per cui mi scuseranno i non nominati, che avrò piacere di inserire nel censimento se me lo fanno sapere. Nella parte centrale della valle -circa 400 residenti su 120 km quadrati- si trovano due trattorie, un agriturismo dove si può mangiare e dormire, un B&B, un affittacamere, un castello con sette appartamenti-vacanza, un bar-tabacchi- merenderia, due negozi di alimentari, una parrucchiera, una fioraia, un negozio di caccia e pesca, un carrozziere, cinque idraulici, tre falegnami, svariati artigiani-manutentori-muratori, una cava di Caolino con annesso resort, una ditta di legnami, un negozio di elettrodomestici, un fornaio, un negozio di vendita e riparazione di utensili per agricoltura e silvicoltura, una ditta di lavorazioni meccaniche di precisione, un produttore di salumi, un geometra, un avvocato, tre circoli ricreativi, una squadra di calcio, tre squadre di caccia, una pro loco, un ufficio postale e una parrocchia.


View Larger Map

Insomma: non è un distretto industriale emiliano, ma qualcosa c’è, oltre ai canaloni, i funghi e i cinghiali, che sono in genere i tre motivi per cui chi non è parente dei residenti  arriva in Valle.

Pici all’aglione (foto A. Giacomelli, 2008 circa)

Concentrandosi sulla parte di servizi che potrebbero servire di più durante il festival: per mangiare o pernottare consigliamo di preiscriversi (gratuitamente) all’evento.

Un progetto pro loco, ma a che pro e per quale loco?

L’ombra del campanile di Torniella proiettata in cielo (foto: Z. Kollath, marzo 2015)

L’idea del festival nasce dalla congiuntura di alcune situazioni portate avanti da associazioni e imprenditori di base nei tre borghi di Torniella, Piloni e Scalvaia e alcuni elementi “di fòri” ma abbastanza radicati nel territorio. Salta fuori che tutti hanno un’esperienza pluriennale nell’organizzazione di eventi su scale diverse, dal locale (sagre, tornei, cene, concerti, campionati di calcio non professionistico) al nazionale-o-sopra (Il Tirreno, Cronaca Vera, Comcast Sports News, Radio 24, e altri).
Sommando questi elementi, per quanto sembri strano ad alcuni, il Festival non ha una valenza strettamente “pro Val di Farma”. Tanto per cominciare, si svolge in due posti, dato che una parte importante della manifestazione sarà a Grosseto. In secondo luogo, le problematiche con cui ci confrontiamo e le opportunità che si offrono, e che ci hanno portato a organizzare il Festival, sono le stesse di qualsiasi gruppo di borghi delle Colline Metallifere, della Toscana e senz’altro di molte altre zone rurali.

Semplicemente, la Val di Farma è il posto dal quale siamo riusciti a sviluppare alcuni progetti, che sono stati proposti anche altrove a partire dal 2005 ma per ora non si sono sviluppati. Ci farebbe molto piacere replicare le nostre esperienze in altri siti, e viceversa, nel percorso svolto nei dieci anni da cui si sono avviate molte delle storie che hanno portato al festival abbiamo visto quali sono i punti su cui abbiamo bisogno di una mano da altri territori.

Per finire la puntata di oggi

Chi vorrà, verrà e si iscriva. Chi non potrà ma vorrebbe, ce lo faccia sapere: questo è anche il primo (almeno a conoscenza del gruppo organizzatore) festival cui si può non partecipare in modo attivo.

In ogni caso, potete seguire la playlist che ci sta accompagnando nella preparazione del festival -così come in momenti precedenti di questo percorso- ché la musica di mattina non ha mai fatto male a nessuno.

Per informazioni: info@pibinko.org

p.s. La grande assente nel festival

E’ la palla a 21 o palla eh!. Ma ora fa freddo, e non si gioca…tempo al tempo e spazio allo spazio…intanto ci si gode la musica.

Dec. 17-18-19, 2016: Farma Valley Winter Fest…three days of pici, love, and music in Southern Tuscany

More detailed information will follow over the next few days.

In the meantime we can say that:

  • the event is bringing together situations from four areas of Tuscany, concerning three topics for three days
  • The core of the festival will be in the Farma Valley, about 100 Km South of Florence
  • The Festival is the prelude for a calendar of events which we would like to roll out during 2017.

Also:

20161217-18-19-vdf-en-page001

The BuioMetria CORDILIT station restarts its measurements under the Sassoforte

The BuioMetria Partecipativa project, in addition to managing a pool of sky quality meters which are borrowed by citizens in all of Italy, also owns a monitoring station with a logger. This can be deployed in any (enclosed) site and will record time series of data. The sensor is part of the Italian Coordination for the collection of light pollution data (i.e. Coordinamento Italiano per la raccolta dati sull’inquinamento luminoso or CORDILIT). Since 2011, CORDILIT receives data from sensors in various Italian regions.

The BMP sensor was first installed in 2014 above Torniella, in the Farma Valley in a location named “Il Colle“. In 2015 the sensor was removed and spent some time at Politecnico di Milano for some tests. A few weeks ago we brought the instrument back home and just a couple of days ago it was re-deployed in the hills. During the Winter the sensor will be staying by the pool of Villa San Martino , with the owner, Fabio Bartalucci. The senso will be taking measurement just under the Sassoforte , and will enjoy with Fabio the view towards the sea and part of the Tuscan archipelago, while we roam through frosty hills and foggy plains to promote the project.

For more information on BuioMetria Partecipativa or CORDILIT: bmp@pibinko.org

In the picture, Fabio Bartalucci at the end of the station installation exercise.

A summary of experiences from Italy in the Loss of the Night Network

The “Loss of the Night” project, funded by the EU COST programme, terminated its four years of activity at the end of October.

This article provides a brief summary of the project and of its relations to Italy.

Some context

nspow_0002_giussani_sgalganoArtificial light at night, if used in excess or inappropriately, will generate light pollution, which represents an issue for its negative effects on human health, fauna, flora, landscape, and energy consumption.
This issue can be controlled without compromising the need for illumination for security and life at night.
From this standpoint, guidelines and regulations have been established, for the reduction of light pollution. These have historically spawned from the experience of lighting engineers and astronomers (who were the first community, back in the early 20th century, to perceive the effect of light pollution on their observations). Much progress has been made in this field, especially in the past 10-15 years. However, the overall understanding of cause-effect relations between artificial light at night and the surrounding environment (and, thus, the definition of effective strategies to reduce light pollution) has yet to be attained.

The European Network

Loss of the Night started four years ago with the idea of connecting technicians and researcher interested in evaluating the effects of artificial light at night in an interdisciplinary context. This trend was already visible in several research initiatives, but was not until then structured in an international project.

Attivarti.org was invited to participate to the Loss of the Night Network since its first steps, given the experience we had developed in outreach, monitoring and citizen science with the della BuioMetria Partecipativa and CORDILIT projects.

Since February 2013 Attivarti.org operated as the primary representative of Italy in the LoNNe management committee, and was joined by the Italian National Research Council Institute of Biometeorology, base in Florence, in 2014.

lonne-institutions

The Loss of the Night network saw the participation of about 40 organisations from 18 countries, facilitating the exchange of knowledge across experts from numerous disciplines: a core of ecologists and physicists, together with chronobiologists, statisticians, sociologists, natural reserve managers, and lighting engineers, just to mention some of the expertise.

 

Among other outcomes, the Loss of the Night network helped to

  • Create a literature database on the effects of artificial light at night
  • Define guidelines on light at night
  • Hold conference, primarily creating the “Artificial Light at Night” series, as well as workshops, courses and outreach events
  • Organize scientific missions. The main one was a four-year intercomparison campaign, allowing the joint testing of various sensors and technologis for night sky quality monitoring. The 2015 edition of the campaign was held in Tuscany, with measurements taken in the Farma Valley and Sesto Fiorentino.

Italy and LoNNe

The participation in the Loss of the Night helped Attivarti.org to establish new contacts also at the national level.

In the research arena, in addition to the above mentioned collaboration with the Institute of Biometeorology (which installed some night sky brightness sensors and started observations on the effects of nocturnal lighting on trees in Florence), at the end of 2015 we started a collaboration with the Department of Biology and the University of Pisa, with studied on the effect of light pollution on marine ecology. We also had initial contacts with researchers in Trento, Bologna, Venice, and Milano, and had a chance to meet young Italian researchers currently working abroad.

Concerning outreach, Attivarti.org hosted some interns from the Scuola Superiore di Mediazione Linguistica in Pisa, for the translation of interviews and other material in English and Spanish.

We gave lectures in Portugal and Catalunya to present the issue of artificial light at night and our experiences in the BuioMetria Partecipativa project in architecture and design schools, and also presented our work from Italy at the ALAN conferences in Leicester, UK, and Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and at the Balkan Lighting conference in Athens, Greece.

Finally, we launched a series of short interviews, pubblished in Italian and English, to give voice to lesser known subjects (young researchers, civil servants, activists) who are committed in the study and the mitigation of light pollution.

nwa_italy
An excerpt of the new world atlas of night sky brightness (Falchi et al., 2016). The colour scale from black to white is related to light pollution. In areas with colour from black to green the night sky is of good quality.

During these four years, we have not interrupted our activities on BuioMetria Partecipativa, with data collection and events in various locations in Italy, and with our contribution to the CORDILIT monitoring network.

Conclusions

With the formal part of the Loss of the Night project now over (thanking once more the coordinators for inviting us back in 2012), we maintain the relationships developed during the project and the interest in continuing our activities of protection and promotion of the night sky. Our primary area of interest is Southern Tuscany, where the BuioMetria Partecipativa project started in 2008, but we are always interested to establish connections with other regions in Italy and the rest of the globe.

 

 

For more information: buiometria@attivarti.org

Nightscape: San Galgano Abbey (Siena), Federico Giussani

Loss of the Night Management Committe member

Jan. 2013 – Oct. 2016

As principal representative for Italy in the Management Committe of the Loss of the Night network I have

  • Actively attended the MC meetings
  • Given lectures in an international Summer School for lighting designers
  • Promoted and co-ordinated, together with CNR-IBIMET in Florence, an experimental campaign for night sky quality monitoring
  • Established collaborations with universities (Scuola Superiore di Mediazione Linguistica e Dept. of Biology in Pisa)
  • Undertaken outreach activities

Not all lamps are the same

A brief yet explanatory video by the Premiumlight EU project. You will see the characteristics of different types of existing lamps.

You may recall that, from the standpoint of artificial light at night effects:

– light sources which are too intense and poorly oriented may cause glare

– lights with a high correlated colour temperature (a threshold has not been defined, but many researcher concur with 3500-4000K) have higher emissions in the blue part of the spectrum and, hence, stronger effects on health (Melatonin suppression, shifting of sleeping time, and other effects currently under investigation).

Kudos to Laurent Canale for pointing out the video

The first night sky quality monitoring campaign by the Museum of vine and wine in Roccastrada, Tuscany

Following the June 30, event about protection and promotion of the night sky at the Museum of Vine and Wine in Roccastrada, Southern Tuscany, the BuioMetria Partecipativa project left on site one of their sky quality meters.

At the end of the presentation, the Municipality agreed to turn of the public lighting in the central part of the village, in order to take some initial measurements of night sky quality.

The sensor was subsequently made available to guests and staff of the Museum. We had to wait for the Summer hustle-bustle to wind down, but it was then possible for the Museum’s team to take measurements during September and October in various parts of the village, thus expanding the BuioMetria Partecipativa database. In addition to identifying some new sampling points, repeated measurements were taken on different days, so as to consolidate the readings.

Kudos to Andrea, Laura, Cinzia, and Paola for this collaboration, hoping that the exercise may be replicated, and that the campaign may suggest a more aware approach to artificial light at night.

For more information: buiometria@attivarti.org

Artificial Night Lighting Reduces Firefly (Coleoptera: Lampyridae) Occurrence in Sorocaba, Brazil

Hagen, O., Santos, R.M., Schlindwein, M.N. and Viviani, V.R. (2015) Artificial Night Lighting Reduces Firefly (Coleoptera: Lampyridae) Occurrence in Sorocaba, Brazil.
Advances in Entomology

Full article: http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ae.2015.31004

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Abstract
Artificial night lighting is gaining attention as a new type of pollution; however, studies of its impacts are scarce. Fireflies provide good models to investigate its effects on nocturnal wildlife, since they depend on their bioluminescence for reproduction. This study investigated the impact of artificial illumination on firefly activity at the new campus of the Federal University of São Carlos (Sorocaba, Brazil). The flashing activity of different firefly species, especially
Photinus sp1 (82% of all occurrences), was investigated during 3 years, before and after the installation of multi metal vapor spotlights. Quantitative and qualitative analysis, performed in transects at different distances from the artificial light sources, showed significant negative effects on Photinus sp1 occurrence. This study proposes fireflies as potential flagship species and bioindicators for artificial night lighting and for the first time quantifies its effects, providing subsidies for future conserva-tionist legislations regarding photopollution.

Keywords
Photopollution, Fireflies, Bioindicators, Flagship Species, Photinus

[Thanks to Andrej Mohar for flagging this]

The Fourth International Conference on Artificial Light at Night

The fourth international conference on Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) was held in Cluj-Napoca (Romania) from Sep. 26 to Sep. 28. The event was organized by the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and the COST Action ES1204 LoNNe, Loss of the Night Network.

Since 2013 this event has drawn experts and scientists from all over the world -with 22 countries represented this year- to share experiences, best practices, and studies on artificial light at night and light pollution.

2016-09-26-10-37-21About 100 participants with a very diverse background, from lighting engineering to chronobiology, from environmental sciences to statistics, astrophysics and visual arts created an interdisciplinary melting pot.

During the three days it was possible to learn about the state of the art related to different aspects of artificial light at night. The conference sessions covered human health, technologies for light pollution monitoring, social aspects, ecology and promotion of nightscapes.

The talks spanned across different scales of observation: from very high detail experiments concerning micro-organism in streams, up to continental-scale assessment of light pollution.

Across this extremely diverse range of experiences and viewpoints, it was in fact possible to identify some common points.

All of the experts agree on the fact that artificial light at night is an essential resource to support our lives, from business to recreation, to safety and security.

2016-09-28-19-44-50At the same time, there are many cases where the negative effects of too much artificial light at night cannot be ignored. While many of these are in the process of being investigated, cautions should be taken against the proliferation of lighting systems which do not consider such aspects.

The technical guidelines created over the past fifteen years, following the first studies on light pollution, were primarily aimed at the reduction of upward lighting and of the number of luminaires.

With the growing presence of LED lighting, a new issue emerged: first-generation LEDs insured an extremely high efficiency (with energy savings up to 80%), while providing a light with a very high component of blue.

Many studies, proposed also at the ALAN conference, have re-iterated that the blue component in light has various negative effects, the main one being the suppression of melatonin production in many species.

Considering that a lighting system can have a life span of 15-20 years, and that in the coming years the replacement of millions of luminaires is foreseen all over the world, the challenge will be to install lighting systems which can provide the best trade-off between energy efficiency and impact on humans and on the living environment.

In this respect, innovation never stops, starting from the availability of new generations of LEDs, with a reduced emission of light in the blue part of the spectrum (with a colour temperature around 3000K).

While many norms and guidelines have not yet completely accounted for such innovations, it is important that all the stakeholders involved in lighting (technicians, administrator, and citizens) be aware of the negative effects of too much artificial light at night, and of the solutions to counter such effects.

The ALAN conference also had the participation from Italian specialists. These included some young researchers (mostly active outside of Italy), and a joint presentation by the BuioMetria Partecipativa project with the National Research Council’s Biometeorology Institute. The presentation summarized various awareness raising and data collection efforts taking place since 2008, in Italy and abroad (see POSTER).

After the first four editions, the ALAN conference will be switching to a bi-annual schedule. The next edition is expected to take place in the USA in 2018.

The abstracts of the Cluj-Napoca conference are available in PDF format.

For more information: bmp@pibinko.org

Participatory Dark Sky Monitoring in Italy: Interactions between Awareness Raising and Research

This is a low-resolution version of the poster presented by BuioMetria Partecipativa and CNR IBIMET at the fourth international conference on “Artificial Light at Night” in Cluj-Napoca (Romania) from Sep. 26 to Sep. 28, 2016.
Clicking on the image will open a larger and readable version.

It might be interesting to review also the poster presented at the International Astronomy Union general assembly in Beijing, China, in 2012.

postercluj