We investigate the effect of the nuclear environment on elastic scattering of protons and light nuclei on the target nucleus \(^{90}\) Zr by analysing experimental differential cross sections measured in the incident particle energy range from tens of MeV to 1 GeV. Our analysis reveals that the nuclear medium has a minimal impact on the scattering of protons and the light nuclei \(^4\) He and \(^6\) Li at high energies. However, as the energy of the incident particles decreases, this influence becomes significantly more noticeable. This effect has a major impact on the elementary NN scattering cross section, which is the most physically significant parameter in both cases of proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus optical potentials.
