The coastal areas of the Atlantic region of the European Union suffer significant pressure from tourist activity (European Commission, 2016).
One of the most significant impacts is the excess of artificial light at night (ALAN) linked to tourist activities. ALAN is at the root of light pollution, which has a negative impact on biodiversity and ecosystems in coastal areas.
It is necessary to take into account the human activities associated with tourism and the environmental consequences of artificial lighting (Widmer et al., 2022). It is therefore considered a necessity to achieve sustainable tourism to quantify the negative impact of light pollution and propose decision-support tools to make the link between tourist activities and light pollution quantifiable. This will be the first step in finding solutions and raising awareness among local stakeholders.
Our case studies are located in Brittany (France), Algarve (Portugal) and Andalusia (Spain). Initial work on the creation of decision support tools and on the state of the art has already been carried out as part of the “Blue Nights” project (2021-2023, UBO-UCA-UM) and the current “TURNO” project (2023-2024, UCA-UBO). The work to be carried out will be a continuation of these two projects by using cartographic tools and satellite images in addition to georeferenced databases of tourism-related services, lighting networks which includes port areas and industrial facilities, as well as tourist facilities and infrastructures. Afterwards, the databases related to the biodiversity corridors in each study area will be used with the aim of identifying where artificial light causes breaks in the ecological continuities.
This decision-support tool will be an aid to decision making for local stakeholders, as well as a tool for raising awareness and setting up a joint project to mitigate this type of pollution in coastal areas with a high level of tourist activity.
Contribute to the improvement of the "Coastal tourism and light pollution" assessment methodology created as part of the Blue Nights & TURNO projects, and to its implementation in the remaining study areas.
Contribute to the design of a prototype operational simulation tool for "light pollution-tourism-biodiversity".
- Design a complex database of light pollution ans coastal tourism (satellite engineering, tourism services, land uses and biodiversity databases).
- Learn to work across disciplines and with several international contacts.
Compensation:
Erasmus + grant available depending on eligibility criteria of your home university
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
