In the May 16 conference which we organised in Brescia with the BuioMetria Partecipativa project in collaboration with the University’s DICATAM on Interdisciplinary promotion and protection of the night sky, we had a very interesting talk on Italian Regional legislation by Maria d’Amore. Maria has been following this topic for over ten years working at the Emilia-Romagna regional administration, and among other topics she presented a table which we then invited her to share.
The table shows similarities and differences, with respect to various criteria, region by region (for those regions where light pollution regulations are present). This table is an extremely interesting reference both for experts, and for non-experts who may have an idea of how different administrations have been approaching the same topic in the course of time.Regions are listed according to a reverse chronological order related to the year of publication of the most recent law.
The table is updated to June 2019 and is currently maintained in Italian (we may consider translating the table if there are specific requests). For comments or for more information, please write to: bmp@pibinko.org
Between June 27 and July 1, 2019, I had the opportunity of attending with the BuioMetria Partecipativa project a part of the fourth “Light Pollution Theory, Modelling, and Measurements” and a workshop connected to the conference. Here you will find a brief summary of the event and the experimental activities related to it, and some highlights (or should I say “high lights”) from the trip from Toscana to Hungary.
Also, please note your next opportunities to interact with BuioMetria Partecipativa and interdisciplinary night promotion and protection: July 16 in Milano, for an outreach event with Wim Schmidt, one of the main Dutch experts on this topic, and from July 25 to 29 in Southern Tuscany, with a visit by prof. Zoltán Kolláth, the mastermind of all the Hungarian events portrayed below, as well as a great progressive rock fan.
A satellite image of Italy at night (from the VIIRS sensor for June 29, 2019)
Now, back to the LPTMM conference (from June 25 to June 28). This is a bi-annual meeting attracting the main world experts in the field. After the main event, an experimental workshop was scheduled, inviting researchers to conduct night sky quality measurements with different techniques, spanning from the dear, old, Sky Quality Meter (which we called buiometro in Italy), to a plethora of imaging systems complemented by rather sophisticated processing workflows.
Such developments in sensing techniques also reflect the maturity on the light pollution monitoring topic. In the Nineties the focus of the experts was in the mitigation of light pollution effects in relation to night sky observation, as a priority mainly deriving from astronomers in order to reduce the amount of light improperly directed upwards. In the following years, with a greater awareness of the negative effects of the blue component of night lights, and its impact on ecology and landscape, measurement systems have evolved in order to detect such information. Essentially state-of-the-art technology requires the acquisition of “all sky” images, allowing to assess the source direction of lights, as well as spectral data. Combining such information, and integrating it with remote sensing data, as well as drone-derived information, extremely detailed scenarios can be assessed, thus supporting policies and management strategies for lighting systems.
The conference was in the Zselic dark sky park, in the South-West of Hungary. This is one of the three dark-sky areas certified by the International Dark Sky Association, and catered like babies by Zoltán Kolláth: in addition to managing the certification process, in the years the professor has fostered a series of lighting renovation projects in the villages around the “night sky reserves”, developed a structured research, and promotion activities on night sky-related issues.
The participants to the 2019 LPTMM conference in Zselic, with folks from (going East from Hungary): China, Canada, USA, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, Slovenia, Poland.
A photo report of the “buiometric” mission and the LPTMM workshop (June 28/July 1 2019)
Lights on in full daytime in PisaLamps with different colour temperatures in Udine (different colour temperature in lamps is not a priori a problem, but it can be well noted here and makes us consider the colour temperature of light as an issue more people should account for)Lights on in full daytime in Budapest Kelenföld. Possibly these are managed with the same system as Pisa (and other sites we are documenting)Villages in rural Hungary, approaching the Zselic area.Hungarian is intriguing for me. Some words are similar to the dialect from Sassari, in Sardinia, and it is impossible to memorize more than one word per day.The opening of the workshop. “Captain” Kollath, explains to the team the strategy they will be adopting in the three nights to follow.The main observation point for the workshop. To the South, the Zselic forest.This is an example of the night sky from the same point, with a night sky brightness around 21.7 magnitudine per arc square second (apart from the Milky Way, please note the number of stars).A part of the tripods used for the instrumentation. On the background some of the nightscapes visible from ZselicHand-made light poles at the entrance of the visitor centre hosting the workshopZoltan setting up his spectrometerThe installation of another sensor (an SQM with various colour filters)One of the spectral readings during the night (with astronomincal twilight not yet over, so that solar radiation is still visible on the left part of the spectrum)Zoltán Kolláth and Andreas Haenel comparing all-sky images acquired with different sensors (visible vs. infrared). This helps to discriminate LED light sources from lighting of other type.Kudos to Kai Pong Tong. In 2015 he was part of the team for the night sky quality measurement campaign in Torniella, Tuscany, and eventually he used a picture of the village’s bell tower as a cover for this PhD dissertation.
We thank the conference organizers for their hospitality, and grant EFOP- 3.6.2-16- 2017-00014, “Development of international research environment for light pollution studies” for support to this mission. For more information: bmp@pibinko.org
A PDF version of the event flyer is downloadable here
For centuries we have been used to live with the night sky as a natural part of our landscape, but substantially independent from our activities. With the development of cities and industrial infrastructures, lighting systems came, as a key resource in improving our quality of life, providing security and enabling us to conduct at night activities which were once confined to daytime. However, in parallel, the combination of lighting sources “spilling” light out of their primary target, or with exceedingly high power, started to generate light pollution, actually contaminating the sky.
Utrecht, The Netherlands
Light pollution has a series of negative impacts, which were initially perceived only as an issue for astronomers, who had to relocate many of their activities from their observatories, most of which were founded not far from cities, to more pristine areas. Over the past twenty years, however, a significant body of research has strongly improved our understanding of the light pollution issue, exposing also effects on ecology, human health, energy management, road safety, and security. The combination of these effects, in parallel with the fast pace of innovation in the field of lighting technology and a significant unawareness of the negative effects of “too much light” (with the “blue light issue” as a key topic today), makes the light pollution issue simple to appreciate on a basic level, but complex to grasp in its multi-faceted implications: everybody will note the difference in a night sky observed from the centre of a large city or from a rural area, but it is then not so simple to deploy lighting policies balancing the perceptions of different sectors of society in relation to lighting.
Independently of different approaches and perceptions on the use of light at night, there are two elements which cannot be denied, if we look at things from a sustainability viewpoint: the night sky is a common good, so solving light pollution issues requires a participatory approach involving many stakeholders, and lighting sources which are not aimed at lighting areas where illumination is needed should be redesigned, so as to mitigate light pollution effects without reducing the quality of our lives.
In order to showcase different scenarios related to these views the Netherlands Consulate General in Milano has organised an event in Cascina Cuccagna, Milano, on July 16, 2019, from 6.00PM to 10PM, with a talk from 6.30 to 7.30PM, a Q/A moment until 8PM, and then till 10PM an info+engagement desk where citizens, creatives, and experts may become an active part of initiatives related to light pollution monitoring and management.
The event is organised in collaboration with the BuioMetria Partecipativa project, and è is related to the exhibition ‘I See That I See What You Don’t See’ in the Dutch Pavillion at the “Broken Nature” international exhibition in the Milano Triennale. Following a conference on light pollution on May 26, the Consulate General has decided to further elaborate on this topic inviting from The Netherlands one of its main light pollution experts, Wim Schmidt. Wim will showcase various aspects of light pollution issues -and mitigation strategies- as observed in his country, which in Europe is one of the most impacted.
To balance this view, and trigger ideas on how citizens, creatives, and experts should be approaching the protection and promotion of the night sky, Wim will interact with Andrea Giacomelli, an expert coming from a dark sky area in Italy (Southern Tuscany). From the interaction between these two angles, and some pratical activities which will be proposed during the event, participants will be stimulated to look at the sky -and to their lights- with a different awareness, and think twice before they change their next lamp.
Wim schmidt is educated as astronomer and psychologist based in Utrecht. On his 50th birthday he decided to give a turn to his life and started a company providing consulting to municipalities, provinces and enterprises on the mitigation of their lighting impact on the environment. He conducts investigations on the development of night sky quality in the Netherlands and is the chairman of the Dutch organization against light pollution. (http://www.sotto.nl/index-english.html)
Andrea Giacomelli is an MS in environmental engineering and a PhD in hydrology, with 25 years of experience in geographic information systems. In 2007 he started his work on interdisciplinary promotion of assets in the fields of culture, environment, and open innovation. His flagship project is “BuioMetria Partecipativa”, providing since 2008 monitoring, citizen science and outreach initiatives on light pollution and night sky protection. He is based in the Metalliferous Hills of Southern Tuscany. (http://www.pibinko.org)
Photo credits (where not indicated in the pictures): satellite imagery: NASA, light pollution photos: Wim Schmidt
The BuioMetria Partecipativa (BMP) project has been involved since 2008 in raising awareness on the issue of light pollution, collecting data on this phenomenon through citizen science networks, and promoting “dark sky” areas characterized by the good quality of the night sky. The collection of observations of this kind can be done throughout the year, but the summer season clearly facilitates the participation of non-experts. With BMP we have launched several summer campaigns, usually focused on specific areas. For example, in 2012 with some instruments located in various locations in the Gulf of Follonica, or in 2017 with various measures throughout the Tuscan coast from Versilia to Maremma (plus some of the islands of the Tuscan archipelago).
As a 2019 summer campaign, we will have the honor of hosting a mission to Italy by Zoltán Kolláth, professor of astrophysics at the Savaria University Center, Eötvös Loránd University, Szombathely, Hungary between 24 and 29 July. Prof. Kolláth is one of the highest international authorities in the field of light pollution studies, as well as in the promotion of the night sky as a resource. He was the creator of one of the first international star parks in Europe, the Zselic landscape protection area, and has for many years been a driving force in protecting night skies in Hungary, with the recognition of three parks certified by the International Dark Sky Association.
At the moment, the professor is responsible for a large national project for the development of scientific research on all aspects of light pollution, including the creation of new sustainable lighting systems. As an astrophysicist, he deals with the dynamics of pulsating stars. He is also very active in the dissemination in this sector, for example taking care of the soundtrack of astronomical signals that have been used in exhibitions and musical compositions, including a piece by John Legend.
An excerpt from the New World Atlas of Light Pollution (Falchi et al., 2016)
The mission in Tuscany stems from a relationship established by the BMP with Prof. Kolláth in 2013 and will lead the scientist to visit some sites in Southern Tuscany. This region in Italy is one of the areas with the best quality of the night sky, given that Italy stands out as a country with not so good conditions for light pollution, compared to other states with similar development conditions, as shown by recent studies. During the mission, the professor will give some outreach presentations on the topics he has studied for over twenty years and will conduct a series of activities to detect and measure the quality of the night sky with high-level scientific instruments. The header image of this article shows an example of an all-sky immage acquired by the professor on the island of Capraia, during the first international symposium on protection and promotion of the night sky in Italy. These measurement will consolidate and expand the observations made by Professor Kolláth in this area in 2015, when he was part of a shorter campaign organised by BuioMetria Partecipativa and the National Research Council from Florence in the context of a European project, with activities in the Farma Valley and in the Tuscan capital.
The actual program of presentations and observation sites in Tuscany will be announced in early July.
After the mission in Tuscany, prof. Kolláth will hold a further event in Trentino, at the Edmund Mach Foundation in San Michele all’Adige, also as part of the initiatives promoted by the BuioMetria Participativa, in the framework of interdisciplinarity and relations among different territories which is one of the cornerstones of the BMP project.
A zoom of the BuioMetria Partecipativa Map on Southern Tuscany, with night sky brightness measures taken by citizens since 2008.
Should you be interested in taking part in the 2019 BuioMetria Summer Campaign, please contact bmp@pibinko.org or +393317539228.
Header image: two globe luminaires silhouetted on the ancient walls of the village of Rab.
From June 14 to June 16 I was invited to give a presentation at the first Croatian conference on light pollution, in the stunning setting of the Rab Island, and namely in the area of Lopar. The event was triggered by the launch of a national law on light pollution, and the interest by various stakeholders to increase awareness on this topic. The invitation I had derived from various pre-existing contacts withing the BuioMetria Partecipativa project, the participation in 2013 to an international measurement campaign on the island of Lastovo, and other interconnections.
The venue of the conference in Lopar. In addition to a majority attendees from Croatia, various delegates were coming from Slovenia, Bosnia, England, and Italy. You may find a partial coverage (in Croatian) on the event from this article on Novi List.
Concerning the talk on BuioMetria Partecipativa, I provided a summary of our experiences since 2008, and our point of view on some of the light pollution issues. Such viewpoint comes from the mediation of numerous contacts with a wide range of subjects active in different roles related to artificial light at night, and light pollution research, as well as an extensive track record of community engagement initiatives, including citizen science campaign, and outreach and education events.
Furthermore, in the presentation we proposed various potential lines of collaboration between Italy, Croatia, and other countries facing the Adriatic sea, also considering the fact that the effects of artificial lighting from Italy are in many cases well detectable from the Eastern coast of the Adriatic, as documented by measurement campaign which I was invited to attend in the past in the context of European projects.
With our presence at the Lopar conference (acknowledging the organizers for their hospitality), Buiometria Partecipativa, a small bottom-up project launched in 2008 in the Farma Valley, one of the lesser known parts of Tuscany, is maintaining its commitment to represent Italy in a European context, on a topic which many people consider a niche. A niche which, however, has every day less motivations to be neglected, given the increasing sensitivity to environmental issues, and the fact that even small actions count, and can be related to strategies on a much wider scale, and with an interdisciplinary approach (which the pibinko.org network is quite comfortable with, anyway)
More initiatives are taking shape summing up the BuioMetria Partecipativa team and the Metalliferous Hills Jug Band , and will be announced soon. The next scheduled “situation” will be Andrea Giacomelli the the third Meet Music, a national workshop on music production in Follonica, on June 25.
Reaching Lopar from Southern Tuscany is a long trip. Given the interesting opportunity of the invitation for a short event, I decided to embed a “survey” campaign on the way, adopting the map(pear)ing approach. For this I needed some starting information, which materialized in the form of a book with the presentation of over 100 musicians from all over the Balkan area (and ranging East to Caucasus), and at some point a map of the country.
The stops were in Trieste (Trst), Rijeka (once Fiume) and Rab (once Arbe). For those of you receiving frequent emails with invitations to go to Croatia for dental care, I can confirm that there are a lot of facilities of this type, at least in the city. I considered that once this area was confronted by irredentists, and now, things evolved and we can find dentists. But let’s give the floor to some shots:
Trieste, the Bora museum.Trieste, Piazza Unità d’Italia at sunset, and various types of lighting.HistoryTrieste, a lighting globe, from belowTrieste, the city of knowledgeRijeka, by the maritime stationRijeka: a lot of care for important musical heritageAn Italian grammar for Croatians in 1957. Between “febbre” (fever) and “felice” (happy) we find “federativo” (federative).The “Korzo” (main street) in RijekaThe “parallel main street” 1the parallel main street 2the parallel main street, 3LifeLighting in Croatia considered wrong by Slovenian experts.The concert by and ABBA cover band which created a score for the final part of the first day of the conference (Friday evening).Three luminaires…one off and the others with different colour temperature.A light in an outdoor staircase (on all day long).LED billboardsAustrian+Hungarian heritage in the harbour of Rijeka.For Italian forty-fifty-year-old folk who didn’t know, Sandy Marton is Croatian (since I know people called Marton in Veneto, I thought he was Italian).
BMP will not have a typical talk at the conference, but will manage some of its communication and outreach aspects, also after the actual event.
The conference will be in Zselic, in the South-West of Hungary, inside of one of the dark sky areas used for environmental education, scientific research, and astrotourism.
The BuioMetria Partecipativa project was invited by the organizers of the first Croatian conference on light pollution to give a presentation.
The conference spawns by the increase in interest on the topic in the country, following the approval of the Croatian light pollution law in 2018 and will be held between June 14 and June 16 in Lopar, on the island of Rab.
A summary of the event will be provided after mid June.
For more hints on the Milano-Brescia mission with Federico Giussani and Dario Canal on may 15/16 2019, please check out the “News” section on pibinko.org for blog posts around mid-May.
