Related projects

Thanks to the collaboration of citizens and scientists committed to protecting dark skies and preserving nightlife, Cities at Night has managed to classify, locate and georeference images captured from space. These data, obtained through volunteer work, represent a valuable tool for scientific research. 

The results generated have allowed significant advances in the study of the impact of light pollution on biodiversity and human quality of life, as well as facilitating the creation of public policies aimed at mitigating its effects. Below, we share some specific examples of research that has relied on our work to drive their findings:

Evaluating the Association between Artificial Light-at-Night Exposure and Breast and Prostate Cancer Risk in Spain

In our study, the images from ISS were used in order to evaluate the possible effect of artificial light at night exposure and breast and prostate cancer risk within a multicase-control study in Spain (MCC-Spain). The ISS images were the best option to perform the analysis because of good quality resolution and colour availability, as we are particularly interested in the blue spectrum of light which has been proved to be related with melatonin supression and circadian disruption, causing by this way, health consequences like cancer, sleeping disorders, cardiovascular disease among others.

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We are interested to explore the effect of exposure to different environmental factors, namely air pollution, noise levels, access to green spaces and artificial light at night, on cognitive performance and development in children. Regarding artificial light at night, photography images of UK cities taken by astronauts aboard of the International Space Station (ISS) will be transformed into maps of artificial nocturnal light intensity, colour spectrum and melatonin suppression.  These maps will be used to assess the associations between artificial nocturnal light on performance of functions such as language, memory, executive function, spatial awareness and problem solving in children.

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Turtles conservation in Florida. IDA, Florida, USA

Of all the animals on our planet affected by light pollution, sea turtles are perhaps most well known.  Sea turtles live in the ocean, yet they hatch at night on sandy beaches. Hatchling sea turtles have one immediate goal to ensure their future survival – find the ocean. They have evolved to locate the sea by seeing the brighter horizon over the ocean, and moving away from dark landward silhouettes. On a natural beach, the newly hatched sea turtles find the open brighter horizon and make for the water.   Bright coastal lights disrupt this process.  Researchers have found that regulating lights visible from the beach is not enough to reduce this impact.  A cost effective way is needed to evaluate lighting that extends many miles inland and document changes in light pollution and how sea turtles respond to change. We will use the ISS images to identify the more sensitive regions.

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Bats are good bio-indicators as their population trends tend to reflect those of lower trophic levels such as arthropods. As nocturnal animals, all bat species are impacted by light pollution. Some still live in green areas in large urbanized cities. However to maintain the connection between these green areas, bats seem to follow dark corridors, i.e. flight path going through the least illuminated parts of the city. In order to define those corridors, we used ISS images taken at night of the three French cities we studied (Paris, Lille and Montpellier) and modeled the relationship between bat activity and the level of illuminance. We also modified the ISS images to create scenarios representing potential change in the light technologies to predict how the dark corridors will change in the future.

Before now data on spatial variation in the emissions of artificial nighttime lighting (from streetlights and other sources) at different wavelengths (perceived as colour) has largely been lacking, particularly at geographic scales. In this project we will resolve this problem, and determine the likely severity across Europe of an array of ecological impacts of artificial lighting of the nighttime environment. We will do this by creating environmental risk maps using data from a novel and largely untapped source, the colour images taken using conventional SLR cameras by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

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EcolightForsSeabirds & LuMinAves research is focused on marine bird populations around the Macaronesian area, threatened by light pollution. These birds suffer the effects of artificial light at night getting disoriented and hitting obstacles. Our intention is using ISS images to evaluate collision risks.

The projects aim an important observation campaign to rise the number of rescued birds as well as develop and implement precautionary measures to help reducing collisions, improving at the same time energetic efficiency.

Light pollution control, Salvador Bara, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain

Our research group at Universidade de Santiago de Compostela is developing an active research programme on the propagation of artificial light through the atmosphere, as well as on its effects on urban, rural and coastal areas. Our present works deal with light generation and propagation modelling and measurement, detector network implementation, studies of the impacts of artificial light on protected natural spaces, and proposals for the regulation of sustainable light emissions and light pollution abatement ordinances.

We plan to use DSLR RGB imagery from the International Space Station as  basic multi-spectral tool for monitoring the strength and spectral composition of the artificial light sources contributing to degrade the nocturnal environment. ISS images also provide a natural way of tracking the pace of the ongoing process of large-scale substitution of solid-state light sources (SSL) for gas-discharge based lamps.

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We want to know which are the kind of sources that produce the light pollution and how it is growing globally. The change to white LED lights is a challenge for monitoring light changes from satellite, because the satellites that cover the whole Earth are not sensitive to blue light. We will compare the astronaut photographs to the satellite data to understand how the change affects our measurement of global lighting trends.

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