SP14: Transdisciplinary integration projects

Integration project field

With an experimental infrastructure for field research, structural and functional effects on artificial light on an ecosystem, which has not been exposed to artificial light before,  was investigated. For this purpose an experimental street lighting system, where light intensity and spectral compositions can be manipulated, was installed parallel as well as horizontal to a water shore. In complementary field experiments (accompanied by laboratory research) chronic effects on flora and fauna were investigated, but also new innovative lighting devices and colour spectra are tested on their ecological impact.
The lights were switched on in 2012 and were changed from high-pressure sodium-vapour lamps to led in 2015. 
Detailed information on the experimental field can be found in Holzhauer et al. 2015.




Integration project community

For this social ecological integration project, joint research fields in communities was identified. The communities, belonging to the three space types urban, regional and local, did at least partially change the existing lighting system. The effects of a different lighting system on the environment, nature and humans was investigated by using questionnaires while collecting exclusive physiological, social sciences and ecological parameters (before-and-after-monitoring).