Changing streetlighting schemes and the ecological availability of darkness

Abstract

Artificial light at night (ALAN), from streetlights and other sources, has a wide variety of impacts on the natural environment. A significant challenge remains, however, to predict at intermediate spatial extents (e.g., across a city) the ALAN that organisms experience under different lighting regimes. Here we use Monte Carlo Radiative Transfer (MCRT) to model the 3D lighting environment at, and just above, ground level, on the spatial scales at which animals and humans experience it. We show how this technique can be used to model a suite of both real and hypothetical lighting environments, mimicking the transition of public infrastructure between different lighting technologies. We then demonstrate how the behaviour of animals experiencing these simulated lighting environments can be emulated to probe the availability of darkness, and dark corridors, within them. Our simulations show that no single lighting technology provides an unmitigated alleviation of negative impacts within urban environments, and that holistic treatments of entire lighting environments should be employed when understanding how animals utilise and traverse them.