Light-Pollution Parameters - Road Lighting: Fundamentals, Technology and Application - page 235

Chapter 16
Light-Pollution Parameters
Abstract Designing light installations with a restricted amount of light pollution
is not possible without a clear insight into which lighting parameters influence light
pollution. These lighting parameters can be divided into those directly related to the
light leaving the location being lighted, i.e. installation-bound parameters, and those
directly related to the light arriving at the point of disturbance, i.e. disturbed-area-
bound parameters. Some standards and recommendations use a mix of both parameter
categories for the limitation of light pollution. In this section, the emphasis is on those
lighting parameters used in specifying limits for light pollution by the International
Lighting Commission CIE, and by the International Dark Sky Association IDA (in
combination with the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America IESNA).
They will be defined and explained. The limiting values themselves will be dealt
with in a following section: “Standards and Recommendations”.
The illustrations in this section are based on road-lighting installations, but all
concepts described are in fact valid for all types of exterior lighting installations rang-
ing from road lighting to residential-area lighting, decorative architectural lighting,
industrial outdoor-area lighting and sports floodlighting.
It was not until the eighties of the last century that the subject of light pollution
received general interest from the lighting community. At that moment there were
hardly any recommendations and guidelines on the subject. Even the basic question
of what are the lighting parameters with which light pollution or the restriction of light
pollution can best be described was not yet answered. But, many different answers to
this question were quickly being proposed and put into local recommendations and
standards. Now harmonization is needed because it will facilitate the comparison of
different lighting installations as far as the restriction of light pollution is concerned.
This in turn will assist in the realization of lighting installations embodying the true
restriction of light pollution. We will therefore concentrate on the light-pollution pa-
rameters specified by international organizations, i.e. by the International Lighting
Commission, CIE and by the International Dark Sky Association, IDA (in combi-
nation with the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, IESNA) (CIE
2013 ; IDA-IES 2011 ).