Bright needs, dark desires: Public preferences and balancing the benefits of artificial light and natural darkness at night in Aotearoa New Zealand

Description

Abstract

1.      While serving many useful functions, anthropogenic light at night (ALAN) also leads to the erosion of natural darkness, and of the various benefits that exposure to darkness provides. Yet, we know little about how people perceive light at night - where they want it, why, and when they prefer darkness.

2.      Using an online survey of 1,000 participants broadly representative of the New Zealand adult population, we assessed participants’ self-declared importance of different benefits derived from ALAN and from natural darkness. For each benefit, we fitted a conditional inference tree with demographic, dark-sky related and built-environment related explanatory variables. For a subset of benefits derived from ALAN, we also assessed what people felt was the most appropriate mode of delivery (i.e. always on at night, on-when-needed (using sensors), or bring-your-own).

3.      Benefits derived from light at night were generally rated as more important than those derived from darkness, especially for safety functions and orientation – however ratings were poorly described by the explanatory variables. Darkness benefits rated lower overall, showed less variability, and were relatively well explained. Across the subset of light benefits assessed, the preferred mode of delivery for at least 31% of respondents was ‘on only when needed’ (e.g. using sensors).

4.      This nationally representative study exploring public perceptions of both light and natural darkness at night is the first of its kind in Aotearoa New Zealand, and possibly globally. We contribute to reframing the discourse around ALAN to consider both light and dark as essential yet countervailing resources. Our findings advocate for a more balanced and nuanced approach to night-time lighting policy—one that recognises light and darkness as coexisting, interdependent resources, and that actively supports a recalibration of their respective benefits in pursuit of socially supported and ecologically sensitive nightscapes.