Reducing urban glow

Tips for businesses

• Use LEDs and compact fluorescents with lower temperatures and warmer colors. Lights with lower color temperatures (2700 - 3000 K) are called "warm colors" (yellowish), while color temperatures over 5000 K are called "cool colors" (bluish).
• Use dimmers, motion sensors, or timers on outdoor lighting
• Use outdoor lighting fixtures that shield the light source to minimize glare and light trespass
• Turn off unnecessary indoor lighting, particularly in empty buildings at night
• Maintain as much overnight dark as possible
• In all cases, care should be taken not to brightly illuminate buildings and other large objects visible from the nesting beach
• Floodlighting should only be used where absolutely necessary for crowd control or other high-usage areas
• Linear strip lighting mounted at foot level along walking paths or stairways is preferred over elevated lighting
• All fixtures should be positioned so that vegetation, topography, or buildings screen the light from the beach, or the fixture should be equipped with shields so that light sources are not visible from the beach
• Red or amber LED fixtures are preferred over high intensity fixtures for applications near nesting beaches

View our lighting guide for businesses(PDF, 4MB)

Tips for residents

• Use LEDs and compact fluorescents with lower temperatures and warmer colors. Lights with lower color temperatures (2700–3000 K) are called "warm colors" (yellowish), while color temperatures over 5000 K are called "cool colors" (bluish).
• Use dimmers, motion sensors, or timers on outdoor lighting
• Use outdoor lighting fixtures that shield the light source to minimize glare and light trespass
• Turn off unnecessary indoor lighting, particularly in empty buildings at night
• Maintain as much overnight dark as possible
• If you live in a high-rise building, use drapes or blackout curtains to reduce light emissions, particularly during turtle nesting and hatching seasons.

View our lighting guide for households(PDF, 4MB)

As part of the Reducing Urban Glow project, a network of 75 urban glow sensors have been deployed across the coastal fringe and Bundaberg City. The maps below use open data to visualise the amounts of urban glow across the region.

The intent of these maps is to show the amount of light pollution produced from our urban areas, and furthermore, empower our community to make informed decisions about its use of light - and take positive action to reduce urban glow.

The sensors within this network collect the following data points:

1. Amount of ambient light in the night sky using Sky Quality Meters (SQMs)
   The principle focus of these sensors is to collect and measure the amount of artificial light emanating from our urban areas. Artificial light is known to have a negative impact on adult turtle nesting site selection and hatchling ocean-finding behaviour by preventing turtles from navigating to and from the ocean. The sensors will, however, detect the light from natural sources, such as the moon on a cloudless night.
2. Presence of clouds directly overhead using Infrared sensors
   Clouds play a significant factor in that they reflect artificial light back toward the earth’s surface and increase the amount of cumulative urban glow. The map below will indicate the presence of cloud cover directly overhead of individual sensors and may help to explain large fluctuations in measurable light over time.

Additional information regarding the sensor network:

• Each individual sensor is connected wirelessly to long-range wide area network (LoRaWAN) gateway.
• Sensors are programmed to collect and record urban glow data at a minimum frequency of 5 minutes.
• At present, updated heat maps are generated every 15 minutes.

An archive of the City and Coastal mapbooks along with the data used to generate the maps can be found on the Australian Government Open Data website.

Coastal map

Click on the map below to view the latest coastal heat glow.

Download the PDF coastal mapbook (approximately 127MB) to view the time lapsed map of urban glow data.

City map

Click on the map below to view urban glow data from across the city.

Download the PDF city mapbook (approximately 200MB) to view the time lapsed map of urban glow data.

Bundaberg Regional Council, as the project lead, has entered into a collaborative partnership with the following partners.

Each project partner has committed a combination of cash and in-kind contributions toward delivery of the project.

Australian Government Smart Cities and Suburbs Program
The program supports projects that apply innovative technology-based solutions to urban challenges. It encourages local government agencies and bodies to deliver collaborative smart city projects that improve the liveability, productivity and sustainability of Australian cities, suburbs and towns.

Queensland Government
Marine turtles play an important ecological role in the shaping and regulation of coastal marine communities by contributing to the maintenance of healthy seagrass beds and coral reefs, helping balance marine food webs and facilitating nutrient cycling. The Queensland Government is working with research organisations, industry, conservationists and Traditional Owners to take action to protect marine turtle species across Queensland.

Ergon Energy
Ergon Energy Network is part of the Energy Queensland Group, formed in June 2016 to build on our proud history of powering Queensland. We safely and reliably deliver secure, affordable and sustainable energy solutions to over 700,000 customers. We are a major contributor to the development of skills across regional Queensland, and are focused on using our partnerships to energise the communities we serve.

Burnett Mary Regional Group
The Burnett Mary Regional Group (BMRG) is the peak body for natural resource management for a region comprising the Burnett and Mary river catchments and the associated sub catchment areas of the Kolan, Elliott, Gregory, Baffle, Burrum and Isis rivers. BMRG delivers practical solutions that protect and enhance our region's natural assets. We seek to build and maintain strong, strategic partnerships.

Central Queensland University

Greenfleet Australia
With 20 years’ experience, Greenfleet is Australia’s most trusted source of biodiverse carbon offsets. As an environmental not-for-profit organisation, Greenfleet’s mission is to protect our climate by restoring our forests. Since 1997, Greenfleet has planted more than 9 million native trees across Australia and New Zealand – restoring more than 475 native and biodiverse forests.

The Prince’s Trust Australia
The Prince’s Trust Australia provides a coordinating presence for the diverse portfolio of His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales’ Australian charitable endeavours. The Prince’s Trust Australia supports the development and delivery of innovative, high impact projects across seven focus areas, including encouraging sustainable practices for both the natural and built environment.

Bundaberg Tourism
Bundaberg Tourism is one of Tourism and Event Queensland’s officially recognised and accredited Regional Tourism Organisations. A membership based, not for profit organisation, its key objective is to build destination awareness through a targeted program of marketing and industry development, with the support of the local tourism industry, businesses and key stakeholders.

Sea Turtle Alliance
Formed in 2015, the Sea Turtle Alliance is a group of key local advocates for turtle conservation. The Alliance has been actively involved with the Mon Repos Turtle Centre and works with Bundaberg Regional Council and the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service on research on ‘turtle-friendly’ lighting best practice.

Bundaberg Regional Council has secured $1,320,000 to deliver the Reducing Urban Glow project through a combination of Council, project partner and Australian Government funding.

Project Overview

As part of the Reducing Urban Glow project a new lighting solution has been designed for the pedestrian pathway along the Bargara foreshore. The new lighting solution has the following features:

• Low colour temperature lighting (yellow/amber in appearance) to reduce the amount light in the blue spectrum. Turtles are particularly sensitive to the blue end of the light spectrum.
• Recessed light fittings with louvres to control the direction of light and minimise seaward light spill.
• Smart technology that allows for dimming of lights down to 20% when lighting is not required, and a gradual ramping of lights to 100% when pedestrians are detected.

This project complements other initiatives to reduce the urban glow in Bargara including a streetlight replacement program and smart street lighting along the Esplanade and Bauer Street.

Construction Location

New lighting will be implemented along the Bargara pedestrian pathway, bounded by Schuhkraft Drive at the north (just south of Nielson Park) and the intersection of the Esplanade and Burkitt Street at the south.

Construction Activities

From Clarke St northward to Schuhkraft Drive new electrical works will be installed, which will require excavation and trenching for new electrical conduit. Excavation work is to be carried out between the hours of 0700 and 1700 (Monday through Friday), and during this time noise levels may be elevated. From Clark St southward to Burkitt St, existing poles and electrical wiring will be used, and only new lighting will be installed. The smart technology hardware components will be installed across the entire installation.

During the construction period, sections of the pathway will not be lit at night and appropriate care should be taken in these areas. Pedestrian traffic management will be put in place to ensure public safety at all times. In addition, the contractor will establish a temporary compound in the car park at Schuhkraft Drive which may reduce car parking available in that area.

It is anticipated that construction activities will commence in early March and will be completed by the end of May.

Why is this project happening?

All of the world’s sea turtle populations are considered rare or threatened. Six live in Australia, and three nest along the Bundaberg Region’s coast at Mon Repos, Burnett Heads and Bargara. The Bundaberg coastline hosts the largest concentration of nesting marine turtles on the east coast of Australia and is home to 50 per cent of endangered Loggerhead turtle breeding activity in the South Pacific Ocean.

Scientific evidence indicates that artificial light sources have a negative impact on adult turtle nesting site selection and hatchling ocean-finding behaviour by preventing turtles from navigating to and from the ocean. This project aims to mitigate the detrimental effects of urban lighting on our breeding turtle population.

Project Stakeholders

This project is funded in part by the Australian Government under Round 2 of the Smart Cities and Suburbs Program. Please visit the project partners page for a comprehensive list of all project collaborators.

Contact Details

For more information about this project or the broader Reducing Urban Glow initiative, visit www.knowyourglow.com.au