More than a yearly summary, a perspective on the work of our team, focusing on our activities on mitigation of light pollution issues.

1. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
The BuioMetria Partecipativa project
(and its operating context since 2008)
Andrea Giacomelli
info@pibinko.org
January 2017
http://www.pibinko.org
http://www.attivarti.org
Licence for this presentation: CC-abbài-ènnecci-scèralàick

2. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
● In 2008: to environmental engineers (one of which PhD) and a young graduate
in geography, supporting Sampdoria an in his first steps in GIS and geomatics
●
By 2016: a micro-network of professionals, NGOs,
research institutes (Italian Research Council and
University), small and medium enterprises. All of these
folks love music.
The team
...e altri...

3. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
The mission
● To promote and protect lesser known resources in the
fields of culture, environment, and open innovation
by means of
● Research (non just scientific research)
● Innovation (or, at times, re-discovery) and transfer
(occasionally technology transfer)
● Outreach and community engagement

4. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
Where are we based
● The centroid of the team is the Farma Valley, in
Southern Tuscany
● 100 km South of Florence
● At the centre of one of the areas in Italy with
dark skies

5. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
Main projects to date
●
2006-2007 La Vendetta del Chihuahua Killer e degli Zombi
●
2007 Palla 21 a Chicago
●
2008 M(‘)appare Milano / Buiometria Partecipativa
●
2009 Festa di Capodanno in piazza del Popolo
●
2010 Fra il tramonto e l’alba
●
2011 Attivarti.org / CORDILIT
●
2012 ENVIROFI
●
2013 Loss of the Night Network
●
2014 Palla 21 a Milano
●
2015 Progetto INVOLEN
●
2016 Festival d’inverno in Val di Farma
These are our projects which obtained at least national media exposure and/or impact.
Clicking on the titles will bring you to the corresponding web page in Italian.
English versions of the same pages are then available by clicking the “English” option on
the website (or write to info@pibinko.org for inquiries).

6. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
Places we have been for events/projects

7. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
Scientific research activities
● CAIL workshops: Ribolla (2008), Massa Marittima (2012),
Monticiano (2012), Gerace (2011)
● ENVIROFI: Workshops in Torniella and Florence
● INVOLEN: visit by CNR team in the Farma Valley, presentation
in an international conference in Florence
● BMP: Università Roma 3, Politecnico di Milano, JRC Ispra,
Leicester, Athens, Cluj-Napoca, CNR ISMAR (Venezia), CNR
IBIMET (Florence)
● Since 1994: consolidate track record in the field of
environmental modelling, data management and geographic
information systems

8. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
National media visibility
● TG2 Costume e Società
● RAI Radio 2 (4)
● Radio 24 (3)
● Topolino (Italian versio of the Mickey Mouse magazine, with a special
inset on “The darkness hunters”)
● Grazia
● La Stampa (one page in the “Society” section)
● Radio Montecarlo
● Radio Capital
● Terre di Mezzo
● Gazzetta Ambiente
Additional track record on local italian media
US visibility in 2007
- Chicago Sun Times
- Comcast Sports News

9. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
Summing it all up
● Ten years of activity as a team with as least
national visibility (and related promotional
impact)
● Relatively extended network of contacts
worldwide
● Demonstrated positive socio-economic impact
since 2008

10. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
Concerning renewables/energy
saving/artificial lighting
● Various environmental specialists, surveyors and
musicians are part of the team
● Consolidated contacts with other thematic
experts (auditing, modelling, data management,
design and installations, utility survey and
management)
● On lighting: we look at promoting territories (and
attracting visitors) with appropriate* lighting
practice
* not compromsing safety and security

11. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
Open issues on “light at night” (in Italy)
● More light than needed according to some is used (OTOH in the
world several cases exist where lighting levels are below technical
guidelines, with no issues concerning safety or security)
● The awareness on negative impacts of excessive light at night is still
low (OTOH, nobody will die after spending a night under a lamp post)
● Awareness on blue light issues (e.g. high correlated colour
temperature LEDs) is low and needs to be increased.
● Specifically to Italy: a lot of actors in the play (but we are good at
having lots of actors in plays)
● As in any theme: it is not always easy to collaborate with an
adequate understading of roles and expertise among partners in
complex international organisations.

12. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera 12
What are we doing on light at night and dark
skies
● BuioMetria Partecipativa
● Loss of the Night Network
● CORDILIT
● PAER Toscana
...we also maintain a track record of things we
avoided doing (write to: astitchintime@attivarti.org
for details)

13. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
BuioMetria Partecipativa
● Since June 2008, citizen
science (lending the
sensors) + outreache
●
As of Dec. 2016: over 100
“buiometristi” and about
1500 readings (mostly in
Italy, but occasionalyl
abroad)
● Some of our measures
were used for the
calibration of the New
World Atlas of Artificial
Night Sky Brightness
(June 2016)

14. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
Loss of the Night Network
● European Project(COST Programme, ES-1204 project – Oct 2012 / Oct. 2016)
● BuioMetria Partecipativa was the main point of contact for Italy (from Jan. 2013, then
adding CNR IBIMET in 2014)
● Management of an experimental campain in Torniella and Florece (march 2015)
● Possibility of getting to know centres of excellence for the topics and methods promoted
by BuioMetria Partecipativa (e.g. Catalunya, Andalucia, Hungary, Romania, Greece)
● Making contact with young Italian researchers currently working abroad
● We conducted outreach and other communication activities on a European scale (not the
first time in general, but the first time on this topic)
● Internships with Italian universities were started within LoNNe

15. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
CORDILIT
● Night sky brightness
monitoring network
● Active since 2011
● Veneto Stellato is the
main collaborating
institution

16. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
PAER Toscana
The latest revision of the Tuscany Master Plan on
Environment and Energy, issued in early 2015, contains
explicit references to interdisciplinary light pollution mitigation
approaches, and promotion of night skies (deriving from
comments transmitted by Attivarti.org during the public
consultation phase)
Page 87 – Actions on reduction of the percentage of
population exposed to noise, radiation and light pollution
Page 91 – Various references to different effects of light
pollution
Page 118 – "Night sky as a resource" has half a page

17. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
We would like to co-operate on
● Awareness raising on “sustainable lighting” (not
just for energy efficiency issues, but also
considering other impacts generated by light at
night)
● Monitoring night sky quality
● Design and delivery of promotion projects
● Facilitating projects of “aware” lighting
improvement

18. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
How to support our work
● For our NGO components: donations .
● For our professional components: we can work
for you (and in some cases we might need your
help and you may work with us)
● Write to mappare@attivarti.org for more
information

19. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
Next steps
● In parallel to our projects, we have a calendar of events for
2017 (with a plan of two events per month: one “at home”
and one “on the road”)
● The 2017 Event Calendar (as of Jan 8, 2017) is available
(currently in Italian, but you may write for details)
● You may subscribe to the Attivarti.org mailing list (Italian
and English options available) to be up-to-date on news,
invitations, concerts, and more

20. Andrea Giacomelli – La BuioMetria Partecipativa e il contesto in cui opera
Thank you for your attention
info@pibinko.org
mappare@attivarti.org
Photo credits page 1:
• Federico Giussani, May 2015, Rocca di Montemassi
• Zoltán Kolláth, March 2015, The shadow of the Torniella bell tower in the sky
• Pibinko: mosaic of 2016 shots (with a tile on Simone Sandrucci + Federico Giussani by Luciano Massetti)