Ambient Light Encroachment at Military Installations

Light Encroachment is the direction of lighting energy resources e.g., street lights to areas where they are unintended e.g., onto military training lands instead of down on the road where it is expected to be useful. It is also called Light Trespass. The military needs to consider light encroachment because of its potential to limit a soldiers ability to train at night. In addition, the current trend is that light encroachment is likely to increase in the future so further limits may be placed on nighttime training. We Own the Night is often heard from members of our military services. Our hi-tech gear allows soldiers to operate well in the dark. Unfortunately, as residential and commercial encroachment increases near our military installation training lands, the capability of military installations to support night training is at risk. In addition to light encroachment on night training, another of the militarys major land management issues is Threatened and Endangered Species TES and sensitive species Species at Risk. nigh Night exercises in Iraq. Many such animals are nocturnal. The most common reason for an organism to become listed as a TES is due to loss of habitat. It is possible that for nocturnal animals light encroachment impacts their habitat, but little is understood about the effects of light on nocturnal TES habitat. The objective of this research project was to summarize methods to characterize light encroachment.