Estudio y Análisis del Grado de la Contaminación Lumínica en el Distrito Metropolitano de Quito- Ecuador

Abstract

In Ecuador, the term light pollution is named in a general way in the Ecuadorian Technical Regulation INEC 069; being deficient the field of research in this area; for this reason in the present study the objective is to estimate the degree of light pollution by means of scales already proposed, in the Metropolitan District of Quito, based on its 8 zonal administrations. The research methodology was carried out by means of a bibliographic, field and statistical review; for which the grid methodology was used to cover the study area with the help of GPS, ArcGIS and Excel to proceed with the zoning and georeferencing in strategic residential locations with a total of 31 sampling points (15 north zone, 6 center-valley and 10 south zone), where the data was obtained using the Sky Quality Meter equipment, model SQM LU-DL. The data were obtained during the waning lunar phase and in varied weather conditions (temperature, lunar illumination and cloudiness) obtaining the following results: northern zone 16.39 [mag/arcsec2 ]; central-valley zone 16.31 [mag/arcsec2 ] and southern zone 15.53 [mag/arcsec2 ]. Based on this evaluation, the DMQ with respect to the scale of the Royal Astronomical Society is estimated to have a range SQM<18.8 [mag/arcsec2 ] of Very Polluted. For the proposed scale of urban areas of Cuenca, it was in the range SQM 15.4-16.6 [mag/arcsec2 ] that represents Contaminated, in addition a critical point was found in the south of the city 13.69 [mag/arcsec2 ] located in the range SQM<15.4 [mag/arcsec2 ] considered Very Polluted. Finally, evaluating with the Bortle Dark Sky scale, it was determined that the urban sky and central urban sky predominate.