Magnitude, Awareness and Management of Light Pollution in Bole Sub-city, Addis Ababa
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Date
2022-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Light pollution is a modern civilization/urbanization unfavorable outcome. It is excessive or inappropriate use of artificial light which can have serious environmental consequences for humans, wildlife, energy consumption and our climate. The impact of light pollution is multifaceted. Almost all living organisms are impacted to changes in the quality and intensity of natural light in the environment. The objective of this study is to assess the level of awareness and practical management of light pollution among government institutions and dwellers around Bole area who are believed to be more vulnerable to the effect as well as to measure light pollution level for a period of 4 months in Bole area, Addis Ababa. The methods used to assess awareness level is by directly collecting survey data from selected environmental governmental organization as well as surrounding dwellers in the study area. Light pollution measurement was undertaken by internationally recognized and approved digital measurement software called Loss of the Night and Bortle scale classification technique and observation of the practice and management related to light pollution is also included. Findings of this study have shown that outcome of Light pollution measurement of Bole area, Addis Ababa was found to be 19.51 mag/arcsec2 . The awareness level was also found to be low among environmental governmental organizations and dwellers. The result of the measurement has shown that the light pollution level is at borderline margin which could be alarming considering the current development status of the country and potential increase with expected upcoming development. Governmental policies need to be revised incorporating also evolving types of pollutions including regulating practice; and it is also critical to engage on a comprehensive awareness-building mechanism for light pollution issues.
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Keywords
Light Pollution, Artificial Light, Light Trespass, Glare, Over-illumination, Blue light.