DOI : https://doi.org/10.18517/ijaseit.7.1.970

Night Sky Brightness Assessment in Nigeria Using Environmetric and GIS Technique

Musa Garba Abdullahi (1), Mohd Khairul Amri Kamarudin (2), Roslan Umar (3), Azizah Endut (4), Saiful Iskandar Khalit (5), Hafizan Juahir (6)
(1) East Coast Environmental Research Institute, University Sultan Zainal Abidin, Gong Badak Campus, 21300 Terengganu, Malaysia
(2) East Coast Environmental Research Institute, University Sultan Zainal Abidin, Gong Badak Campus, 21300 Terengganu, Malaysia
(3) East Coast Environmental Research Institute, University Sultan Zainal Abidin, Gong Badak Campus, 21300 Terengganu, Malaysia
(4) East Coast Environmental Research Institute, University Sultan Zainal Abidin, Gong Badak Campus, 21300 Terengganu, Malaysia
(5) East Coast Environmental Research Institute, University Sultan Zainal Abidin, Gong Badak Campus, 21300 Terengganu, Malaysia
(6) East Coast Environmental Research Institute, University Sultan Zainal Abidin, Gong Badak Campus, 21300 Terengganu, Malaysia
Fulltext View | Download
How to cite (IJASEIT) :
Abdullahi, Musa Garba, et al. “Night Sky Brightness Assessment in Nigeria Using Environmetric and GIS Technique”. International Journal on Advanced Science, Engineering and Information Technology, vol. 7, no. 1, Feb. 2017, pp. 28-34, doi:10.18517/ijaseit.7.1.970.
Citation Format :
High anthropogenic activities are rapidly increasing phenomenon and it is assumed to have global implications. In Nigeria, high anthropogenic activities rapidly increase above the standard of the threshold values especially the lighting sources. This increase due to the vastly growing of industries, residential and commercial uses and other sources such as street lighting in urban and semi-urban areas, which can make the night sky brightness in the area above the threshold set for polluted status. The study measures the night sky brightness at the most densely populated urban centers of Nigeria; to estimate and quantify the level of the night sky brightness from the sites nearby the cities of the planned research study. The research monitored the zenith sky brightness from November 2015 to March 2016 using Sky Quality Meter (SQM). However, typical values ranging from 20.14 to 22.00Mag.sqm /arc sec.2 were measured at different sites of the study area. This data recorded in the field was analyzed using Agglomerative Hierarchical Method via Ward’s Methods to cluster our data according to the pollution status of the areas. Result showed three clusters in which class 1 has low pollution; class 2 is moderate while class 3 has the high pollution status. The sites classified in class 3 are more polluted due to the high use of artificial light. However, geographical information system (GIS) software was employed to confirm the results obtained from environ-metric technique and concluded that this result is confirmed to be the same. Hence, it illustrated that sites in cluster 1 have an excellent dark location that can be used to build optical observatory stations and other astronomical observations due to their dark sky.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

    1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
    2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
    3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).