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Journal Article

Monitoring, trends and impacts of light pollution

Authors

Linares Arroyo,  Hector
External Organizations;

Abascal,  Angela
External Organizations;

Degen,  Tobias
External Organizations;

Aubé,  Martin
External Organizations;

Espey,  Brian R.
External Organizations;

Gyuk,  Geza
External Organizations;

Hölker,  Franz
External Organizations;

Jechow,  Andreas
External Organizations;

Kuffer,  Monika
External Organizations;

Sánchez de Miguel,  Alejandro
External Organizations;

Simoneau,  Alexandre
External Organizations;

Walczak,  Ken
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/kyba

Kyba,  C.
1.4 Remote Sensing, 1.0 Geodesy, Departments, GFZ Publication Database, Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum;

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Fulltext (public)

5025922.pdf
(Postprint), 2MB

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There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Linares Arroyo, H., Abascal, A., Degen, T., Aubé, M., Espey, B. R., Gyuk, G., Hölker, F., Jechow, A., Kuffer, M., Sánchez de Miguel, A., Simoneau, A., Walczak, K., Kyba, C. (2024): Monitoring, trends and impacts of light pollution. - Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, 5, 417-430.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00555-9


Cite as: https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5025922
Abstract
Light pollution has increased globally, with 80% of the total population now living under light-polluted skies. In this Review, we elucidate the scope and importance of light pollution and discuss techniques to monitor it. In urban areas, light emissions from sources such as street lights lead to a zenith radiance 40 times larger than that of an unpolluted night sky. Non-urban areas account for over 50% of the total night-time light observed by satellites, with contributions from sources such as transportation networks and resource extraction. Artificial light can disturb the migratory and reproductive behaviours of animals even at the low illuminances from diffuse skyglow. Additionally, lighting (indoor and outdoor) accounts for 20% of global electricity consumption and 6% of CO2 emissions, leading to indirect environmental impacts and a financial cost. However, existing monitoring techniques can only perform a limited number of measurements throughout the night and lack spectral and spatial resolution. Therefore, satellites with improved spectral and spatial resolution are needed to enable time series analysis of light pollution trends throughout the night.