1. Background
Artificial light offers valuable benefits to society. It extends hours of activity and facilitates education, leisure, recreation, travel and economic activities beyond the diurnal hours. However, if used inappropriately, artificial or man-made light can be of a nuisance and is harmful to human health and wildlife. Such inappropriate lighting may lead to light pollution, which is independent from the efficacy of the luminaires installed, is also a waste of energy and contributes to climate change by increased carbon emissions in the atmosphere.
External artificial light may lead to spill-over light, or in other words, light which shines or trespasses into areas beyond that area, place or subject intended to be illuminated. Energy-efficient LED luminaires also resulted in an increase in levels of illumination, which often do not provide an increase in benefit, as well as an increase in blue-rich light emissions, which are considered amongst the one with the greatest impact.
These Guidelines provide an overview of the effects of light pollution, providing guidance how light pollution can be avoided or even reduced, particularly in cases of existing bad lighting installations.
Furthermore, the guidelines also indicate the framework for the adoption of Dark Sky Areas on the Maltese main islands, similar to areas already designated on Gozo and Comino.
2. Documents
3. Submission of input
The public was invited to submit any feedback or comments on this draft document by sending an email to
era.policy@era.org.mt
Submissions were received by 4 August 2020.
We thank you for your input.