Nighttime light data is a mainstay method in confirming and supporting other traditional economic data indicators, which in turn influence business and policy-making decisions. Accuracy in and clear definition of economic data and its related indicat...
Timely and accurate extraction of urban land area using the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) nighttime light data is important for urban studies. However, a comprehensive assessment of the ex...
The urban spatial structure is a key feature of the distribution of social and economic resources. The spatial structure of an urban agglomeration is an abstract relationship expression of urbanization. Urban agglomerations develop for multiple reaso...
An accelerating trend of global urbanization accompanying various environmental and urban issues makes frequently urban mapping. Nighttime light data (NTL) has shown great advantages in urban mapping at regional and global scales over long time serie...
Nighttime light data are often used to estimate some socioeconomic indicators, such as energy consumption, GDP, population, etc. However, whether there is a causal relationship between them needs further study. In this paper, we propose a causal-effe...
11 June 2022
The old-age dependency ratio (ODR) is an important indicator reflecting the degree of a regional population’s aging. In the context of aging, this study provides a timely and effective method for predicting the ODR in Chinese cities. Using the...
The DMSP/OLS Nighttime light (NTL) data directly reflect the spatial distribution and light intensity of artificial lighting from the Earth’s surface at night, and has become an emerging instrument for urbanization research, including in the mo...
Calibration and reconstruction of time series DMSP-OLS nighttime light images are critical for understanding urbanization processes and the evolution of urban spatial patterns from a unique perspective. In this study, we developed an improved stepwis...
Daily nighttime light (NTL) observations made by remote sensing satellites can monitor human activity at high temporal resolution, but are often constrained by residual physical disturbances. Even in standard products, such as NASA’s Black Marb...
Nighttime light data record the artificial light on the Earth’s surface and can be used to estimate the degree of pollution associated with particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of less than 2.5 μm (PM2.5) in the ground-level atmosphere. Th...
Spatial identification of the urban-rural fringes is very significant for deeply understanding the development processes and regulations of urban space and guiding urban spatial development in the future. Traditionally, urban-rural fringe areas are i...
The nighttime light data records artificial light on the Earth’s surface and can be used to estimate the spatial distribution of the gross domestic product (GDP) and the electric power consumption (EPC). In early 2013, the first global NPP-VIIRS nigh...
A high-resolution population distribution map is crucial for numerous applications such as urban planning, disaster management, public health, and resource allocation, and it plays a pivotal role in evaluating and making decisions to achieve the UN S...
Nighttime light (NTL) data and points of interest (POI) data offer precise visual indications of the distributional characteristics of urban spatial structures. This study employed nighttime light data and point of interest data to investigate spatia...
29 October 2019
Due to remarkable socioeconomic development, an increasing number of karst rocky desertification areas have been severely affected by human activities in southern China. Effectively analyzing human activities in karst rocky desertification areas is a...
Nighttime light remote sensing technologies provide methods for studying spatiotemporal changes in urban areas. In this research, we study the changes in the urban zone in Zhejiang Province based on NPP/VIIRS nighttime light data. Moreover, we propos...
Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), released from excessive fossil fuel consumption, are major contributors to global warming. Understanding the spatial distribution of CO2 emissions on a refined scale is crucial for promoting green econo...
In China and elsewhere, urban expansion is directly related to the important issues of social development, economic development, and the sustainable development of the ecological environment. Traditional statistical methods based on administrative re...
Land use and land cover changes (LULCC) are prime variables that reflect changes in ecological systems. The Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau (GHKM) region located in South China has undergone rapid economic development and urbanization over the past t...
This paper attempts to establish the accurate and timely forecasting model for the total output value of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery (TOVAFAF) in various provinces of China using NPP-VIIRS nighttime light (NTL) remote sensing...
The precise recognition of urban fringes is vital to monitor urban sprawl and map urban management planning. The spatial clustering method is a prevalent way to identify urban fringes due to its objectivity and convenience. However, previous studies...
With the rapid process of urbanization, anthropogenic heat generated by human activities has become an important factor that drives the changes in urban climate and regional environmental quality. The nighttime light (NTL) data can aptly reflect the...
A significant difficulty in urban studies is obtaining urban areas. Nighttime light (NTL) data provide efficient approaches to map urban areas. Previous methods have utilized visual particularities of cities with ancillary data to obtain the optimal...
Urban expansion poses severe threats to ecosystems. It is therefore important we better understand the impact of different urban expansion level on ecosystems for developing regionally differentiated ecological protection policies. Here, we proposed...
19 September 2022
Urban–rural fringes, as special zones where urban and rural areas meet, are the most sensitive areas in the urbanization process. The quantitative identification of urban–rural fringes is the basis for studying the social structure, lands...
Energy consumption is an important indicator for measuring economic development and is closely related to the atmospheric environment. As a demonstration zone for China’s high-quality development, the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Great...
Previously published studies on population distribution were based on the provincial level, while the number of urban-level studies is more limited. In addition, the rough spatial resolution of traditional nighttime light (NTL) data has limited their...
Poverty is a social issue of global concern. Although socioeconomic indicators can easily reflect poverty status, the coarse statistical scales and poor timeliness have limited their applications. While spatial big data with reasonable timeliness, ea...
Accurate delineation of urban built-up areas is critical for urban monitoring and planning. We evaluated the performance and consistency of three widely used methods—thresholding, multi-temporal image fusion, and support vector machine (SVM)&md...
Uneven regional development has long been a focal issue for both academia and policymakers, with numerous studies over the past decades actively engaging in discussions on measuring regional development disparities. Generally, most existing studies m...
In recent years, the accelerated urbanization process in China has led to increased land resource constraints and unregulated expansion, imposing significant pressure on ecosystems and the environment. As a critical node along the Silk Road Economic...
As the world’s second-largest economy, China has experienced rapid industrialization and urbanization, resulting in high energy consumption and significant carbon emissions. This development has intensified conflicts between human-land relation...
The regional disparity of urban expansion varies significantly in China’s different regions, hindering sustainable socioeconomic development. However, most studies to date have focused on a single aspect of urban expansion, e.g., urban spatial...
Achieving equitable and harmonized socio-economic development is a vital gauge of national progress, particularly in geographically extensive nations such as China. This study, employing nighttime lights as a socio-economic development indicator and...
Accurately identifying the spatial range of urban agglomerations holds significant practical importance for the precise allocation of various elements and coordinated development within urban agglomerations. However, current research predominantly fo...
The destructive forces of tropical cyclones can have significant impacts on the land, contributing to degradation through various mechanisms such as erosion, debris, loss of vegetation, and widespread damage to infrastructure. Storm surge and floodin...
Urban nighttime leisure spaces (UNLSs), important urban sites of nighttime economic activity, have created enormous economic and social benefits. Both the physical features (e.g., location, shape, and area) and the social functions (e.g., commercial...
22 March 2022
Built-up areas are one of the most intuitive and important indicators used to assess urbanization, the spatial expansion of which is of great significance in depicting the evolution of urban spatial structures. Based on the harmonized Defense Meteoro...
In recent years, the increasing frequency of global seismic events has imposed severe impacts on human society. Timely and accurate assessment of post-earthquake damage and recovery is essential for developing effective emergency response strategies...
Night-time light data (NTL) have been extensively utilized to map urban fringe areas, but to date, there has not been a comprehensive evaluation of the existing spatial clustering methods for delineating the urban fringe using different types of nigh...
Observing and understanding changes in Africa is a hotspot in global ecological environmental research since the early 1970s. As possible causes of environmental degradation, frequent droughts and human activities attracted wide attention. Remote sen...
Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) data has the shortcomings of discontinuous and pixel saturation effect. It was also incompatible with the Soumi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership Visible Infrar...
As the world urbanizes and builds more infrastructure, the extraction of built-up areas using remote sensing is crucial for monitoring land cover changes and understanding urban environments. Previous studies have proposed a variety of methods for ma...
The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) and the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership satellite’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (NPP/VIIRS) nighttime light (NTL) data provide an adequa...
Along with rapid urbanization, nighttime activities from places, such as restaurants, pubs and bars, and theatres, have created enormous economic and social benefits. The nighttime economy (NTE), as a newly developed social phenomenon, has been used...
The LJ1-01 satellite is the first dedicated nighttime light remote sensing satellite in the world and offers a higher spatial resolution than the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) and the Visible...
Urban agglomerations, such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta, are the key regions for energy conservation, carbon emission reduction and low-carbon development in China. However, spatiotemporal patterns of CO2...
Remotely sensed nighttime lights (NTLs) have become essential in urban and environmental research but are typically captured at fixed local times by sun-synchronous satellites, limiting their ability to capture changes throughout the night. In contra...
Africa has been experiencing a rapid urbanization process, which may lead to an increase in unsustainable land use and urban poverty. Assessing the spatiotemporal characteristics of urbanization dynamics is especially important and needed for the sus...
Nighttime light data play an important role in the research on cities, while the urban centers over a large spatial scale are still far from clearly understood. Aiming at the current challenges in monitoring the spatial structure of cities using nigh...
of 17