Eco Friendly Lighting Options for Offshore Installations and Related Design Challenges
Abstract The impact of artificial lighting on birds and animals has been a subject of research for many decades. These studies have established that light pollution from offshore facilities result in disturbing effects on migratory birds and marine animals. It is understood from the various studies that light emanating from offshore structures attract birds at night and disorient them during their migratory flight. As they are distracted from their flight path, they are either found trapped by the light that they keep circling around the installations or make them to take shelter in the installations, ultimately making them miss their migratory journey. This results in reduced winter survival and reduced reproduction success. Many birds are also found to die eventually because of bird strike or by getting themselves incinerated in flares. Congregation of birds in offshore installations also lead to risks related to helicopter landing / take-off. It is also observed that artificial light attracts marine species like turtles and fishes, which result in adverse effects like alteration of feeding habits, impacted circadian rhythm and interference with their reproductive function. From the knowledge of aforementioned disruptive effects of artificial lighting, significant efforts have been made to develop lighting systems for offshore installations that are eco-friendly. Various means of mitigating the undesirable effects of artificial lighting in offshore installations are being tried in the last couple of decades.