Customer Reviews

Light Pollution Handbook (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

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This is a book that aim to be a very complete work on light pollution. In fact it covers about every aspects of the problem. Unfortunately, even being published under the Springer 'Astrophysics and Space Science Library' it is lined up to the lighting people (designers, producers, researchers) opinions. For example, most of the suggestion given on how to limit the light pollution are taken from CIE documents, like the CIE Guidelines for minimizing sky glow. The problem is that guidelines will not allow to minimize sky glow at all. For example, almost all the luminaires are installed in what they call zone E3 and E4 (suburban and urban residential areas and city and metropolitan areas with considerable nigthtime activity). For these zones CIE Guidelines give a 15% or 25% ULR (upward light ratio). This means that things may continue in a 'business as usual' scenario.
In the chapter on the enforced laws, no mention is given on the most effective laws ever enforced to fight light pollution: some Italian regional laws. The book speaks about some proposed bill for more than a page, but it don't speak about Lombardy, Lazio, Marche, Emilia-Romagna laws that were already enforced up to four years before the book publication. Perhaps it is because these laws are really against light pollution, and, in fact, where enforced, the twofold increase of sky luminance has been stopped.