IDENTIFYING ILLUMINATION COVERAGE IN UP DILIMAN CAMPUS USING GIS

Abstract

The University of the Philippines Diliman faces challenges for pedestrians, particularly at night. Hence, this study proposed the creation of a detailed map using QGIS to showcase the illumination coverage of street lights around the UP Academic Oval. The project aims to establish a safer and more secure environment within the university community, ensuring optimal visibility and reducing the risk of accidents through a map that provides crucial insights into the spatial distribution of street lights, highlighting areas with sufficient lighting and areas in need of improvement. It considered significant factors that affect illumination quality across the campus such as terrain, lamp height, and bulb specifications. Based on the gathered data, increasing the lamp post height by a meter expands the illumination coverage around Roces Street and along paths towards University Avenue, but decreases light intensity. Changing the beam angles of the lamp posts from 112 to 140 degrees causes clustering of illumination areas along the left side of the Academic Oval, enhances those along Beta Way, and weakens light intensity of the lamp posts though not as much as in the first case. Lastly, increasing both the height of the lamp posts and their beam angles by a meter and at 140 degrees results in the significant increase of illumination coverage along the Academic Oval. However, increasing the heights of the posts may be costly. Therefore, to economically provide better coverage and maintain safety around the area, beam angles of the lamp posts should be increased to 140 degrees.