Tag Archives: buiometria partecipativa

BuioMetria Partecipativa published as a case study on Public Lab

In the media, International

Buiometria partecipativa (i.e. participatory night sky quality monitoring), which was started in 2008 as a citizen science project to raise awareness on light pollution, starting from the idea of two environmental engineers combined with the network of palla a 21 players as an initial base, and then grown over the years obtaining international recognition, has been recently re-published as a case study by Public Lab. This is an international association basesd in the USA with the mission of pursuing environmental justice through community science and open technology:

https://publiclab.org/notes/pibinko/04-25-2022/participatory-night-sky-quality-monitoring

To learn more about this (or to take part in our upcoming activities): micalosapevo@pibinko.org, or whatsapp +393317539228.

See also: http://www.pibinko.org/buiometria-partecipativa-2/

Monitoring Light Pollution with an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle: A Case Study Comparing RGB Images and Night Ground Brightness

Announcements

This is an article by our BuioMetria Partecipativa partner Luciano Massetti from the Institute of Bioeconomy at the National Research Council in Florence, which I am glad to share:

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/14/9/2052

For more information and booking: micalosapevo@pibinko.org or whatsapp +393317539228

Soundtrack: Il cielo è di tutti (the sky is everybody’s), Jug Band Colline Metallifere cover:

Drivers of artificial light at night variability in urban, rural and remote areas

Announcements

Luciano Massetti, from the Italian Research Council’s Institute of Bioeconomy in Florence, has published on the Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer and article analysing three years of data collected through the night sky quality meter network deployed since 2016 in Tuscany. The network currently has sensors in Sesto Fiorentino (right next to Florence), Leghorn, the San Rossore Park just West of Pisa, and on the Island of Montecristo. We are collaborating on these topics with Luciano since 2016 with our BuioMetria Partecipativa project.

Through September the full article may be downloaded from https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1bbea564SNVl5

An Italian interdisciplinary citizen observatory for the protection and promotion of night skies on year 12 of its evolution: challenges and opportunities from a Digital Earth perspective

Scientific Publications

The proceedings of the 11th Symposium of the International Society for Digital Earth, held in September 2019 in Florence, Italy, have been published. In the proceedings you also find an article about the presentation given by Andrea Giacomelli (co-authored by Elena Maggi and Luciano Massetti) on BuioMetria Partecipativa.

The article is available from this page (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/509/1/012018)

For more information on buiometria partecipativa, and services on light and darkness by pibinko.org:

Abstract

Citizen observatories are community-based systems that can complement official networks for environmental data collection. This study proposes the case of a Citizen Observatory on light pollution, developed in Tuscany since 2008. Starting from the collection of measurement by volunteers, the observatory is now composed by a heterogeneous array of subjects (two research institutions, two rural communities, a rock-blues band, and a professional photographer) operating from local to international level through its connection with the international scientific community. This collaboration produced several outcomes: light pollution monitoring campaigns, numerous outreach events for raising citizen awareness on light pollution and its consequences and for the promotion of dark sky areas, input to global level position papers and scientific publications, the organization of an international Symposium on promotion and protection of the night sky.

“GeoMay” Day in Torniella-Piloni, Tuscany

Events, Maps

In Italian May is “Maggio”, so “Maggeo” is a sort of fusion between the name of the month and the geo- prefix. Since in 2020 it is not possible to attend May Day celebrations in person, in Italy and many other parts of the world, we try to re-enact some past May Day events by simulating their unfolding with a combination of mapping supports, videos and photos.

Piloni, photo by Pio Spinosi. If you can guess the year please write to micalosapevo@pibinko.org

As a Maggeo prototype we took the 2009 May Day in the Farma Valley, in Tuscany, about 100 km South of Florence. On that occasion, with the BuioMetria Partecipativa project we followed all the celebration. This starts normally at 8.30AM in the Piloni square with a sandwich with marinated anchovies + red wine (or soda if you can’t have wine), and ends around noon at the Torniella football field, after several other stops of this type. At the end of the march, some people possibly end up having too many marinated anchovies, but the spirit of the is May Day is very strong (in all ways).

Along the walk from Piloni to Torniella, we asked to as many people as possible “how dark is the sky above the Farma bridge?” (before posing the question we were giving notions on light pollution and night sky quality measurement, so that our counterpart would not be giving random numbers).

  • The intial zoom level of the map is intentionally set so that people can first understand where the Farma Valley is located on Earth. As Andrea the old bartender used to say: “the problem is not finding the bar in Torniella…the problem is finding Torniella”.
  • In the search window below you can type something, and the system will tell you if in the video there is a matching place. Even a single letter will do.
  • If you click on the name of a place you will be brought to the corresponding section of the “How dark is the sky in Maremma?” video. The video is subtitled in English.
  • We are missing images of a couple of the official “stops”…should you happen to have some footage, please write to micalosapevo@pibinko.org
  • FYI: parts of this video (together with other buiometria partecipativa videos) were used in 2010 in a report by TG2 (one of the national TV news services)

For more information and booking: micalosapevo@pibinko.org

Lectures on the Application of Participatory Methods for the Design of Interdisciplinary Activities for the Protection and Promotion of the Night Sky (Spring 2020)

Projects,

TO BE TRANSLATED

Il 23 marzo e 16 aprile 2020 ho tenuto un corso integrativo sull’Applicazione di metodi partecipati alla progettazione di interventi di tutela e valorizzazione interdisciplinare del cielo notturno per gli studenti del corso di Composizione Architettonica per la Laurea in Ingegneria Edile-Architettura dell’Università di Brescia (docente prof. Olivia Longo).

Il corso ha costituito lo sviluppo del convegno tenuto sullo stesso tema nel maggio 2019, con riconoscimento di crediti formativi professionali per ingegneri e architetti, sempre all’Università di Brescia. Durante il corso c’è stato anche un saluto

Per approfondimenti

Per informazioni e booking: info@pibinko.org