Light pollution assessment study based on AHP-CI-VCW model

Abstract

Light pollution has become increasingly serious in recent years. In order to better understand and mitigate the ecological and biological impacts of light pollution, a model was developed in this paper to measure the regional light pollution risk level. We developed the AHP-CI-VCW model. Based on the four main influencing factors of weather, reflection, air quality, and lighting, as well as the upper limit Ei for each indicator, we developed daytime and nighttime light pollution assessment models using hierarchical analysis and integrated index method, respectively. After that, we established the visual contrast weighting method, and assigned the scores of these two models to W1=1/7 and W2=6/7, respectively, and the two scores were summed to obtain the light pollution risk score of the region. We then selected protected areas such as the Grand Canyon of Colorado, rural Ashland, suburban Yonkers, and urban Washington to assess the light pollution risk level. We reviewed the local data and introduced them into the AHP-CI-VCW model and calculated scores of 1.117 for Colorado Grand Canyon, 1.975 for Ashland, 2.617 for Yonkers, and 2.815 for Washington, D.C. Using satellite light remote sensing maps, we validated the results and determined the light pollution risk levels for these four areas as none, low, moderate and high.