This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Scientists have produced a first-of-its-kind assessment showing which coastal regions of Europe they believe are at greatest risk from harmful light pollution. The research set out to establish a way to assess whether a region has good environmental status (GES) when it comes to the risks posed by artificial light at night, otherwise known as ALAN.
With no defined criteria for GES currently in existence for ALAN in European waters, the study team developed a new system that takes into account the light pollution emitted by coastal towns and cities, as well as the clarity of the seawater in particular locations and how easily light can penetrate the water column. They then used existing data, including information previously published in a global atlas of nighttime light pollution, to highlight the European waters at greatest and least risk of harm. The study found that enclosed regions, bordered by land on several sides, tended to have the highest risk of exposure to harmful light pollution, with the Adriatic Sea, Baltic Sea and western Mediterranean Sea being the most affected European waters.
At the other end of the scale are more open areas of water such as Macaronesia (a region that includes the Canary Islands, Azores, Madeira and Cape Verde), the Barents Sea and the Iceland Sea. The waters around the U.K., the Greater North Sea and the Celtic Seas, are largely characterized as being at medium to low risk. However, the North Sea's oil and gas fields—and the infrastructure associated with them—did add significant levels of light pollution to what would otherwise be an open-ocean setting.
Their research comes at a time when the European Union's Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), introduced in 2008 to protect the marine ecosystem and biodiversity, is being reviewed. The authors hope their work, and the evidence it is based on, will ensure the impacts of ALAN are fully reflected in any future legislation. Thomas Davies, associate professor of marine conservation at the University of Plymouth, led the first-ever study into the effects of light pollution on the marine environment in 2014 and is the new study's lead author.
He said, "Over many years, our research has repeatedly shown light pollution is significantly impacting many important coastal species. However, it is still not fully reflected in global policy, and while the MSFD was supposed to include measures linked to light pollution, that has never fully materialized. "The argument has always been that there isn't the evidence to support any detailed legislation, meaning that light pollution remains—in policy terms at least—something of a hidden environmental threat.
Our argument, based on this study and our other work since 2014, would be that is no longer the case and we believe we have clear evidence of risk and harm that urgently needs to be translated into meaningful action." Tim Smyth, director of science at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, is the study's senior author. He added, "Defining and quantifying good environmental status requires more than measurement alone. It depends on combining global observations and mapping with expert scientific judgment on what a healthy ocean should look like.
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