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Author  |
Levin, N.; Phinn, S. |

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Title |
Illuminating the capabilities of Landsat 8 for mapping night lights |
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Journal Article |
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Year |
2016 |
Publication |
Remote Sensing of Environment |
Abbreviated Journal |
Remote Sensing of Environment |
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182 |
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27-38 |
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Remote Sensing; Instrumentation |
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Remote sensing of night-lights has been enhanced in recent years with the availability of the new VIIRS Day and Night band, the commercial EROS-B satellite and astronaut photographs from the International Space Station. However, dedicated space-borne multispectral sensors offering radiance calibrated night lights imagery are yet to be launched. Here we examined the capabilities of Landsat 8 to acquire night time light images of the Earth. Examining seven night-time Landsat 8 scenes, we found that brightly lit areas in both urban (Berlin, Las Vegas, Nagoya and Tel-Aviv) and gas flares (Basra, Kuwait) areas were detected in all eight bands of Landsat 8. The threshold for detection of lit areas was approximately 0.4 W/m2/μm/sr in bands 1â5 and 8 of Landsat 8. This threshold level was higher than Landsat dark noise levels, and slightly lower than post launch Landsat 8 OLI band dependent noise equivalent radiance difference levels. Drawing on this, we call on the USGS to plan an annual night-time acquisition of urban and gas flares areas globally, and to enable the performance of the future Landsat 10 to be established in a way that it will be sensitive enough to image the Earth at night, thus performing as Nightsat during the night. |
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0034-4257 |
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LoNNe @ kyba @ |
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1452 |
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Author  |
Li, X.; Levin, N.; Xie, J.; Li, D. |

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Title |
Monitoring hourly night-time light by an unmanned aerial vehicle and its implications to satellite remote sensing |
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Journal Article |
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Year |
2020 |
Publication |
Remote Sensing of Environment |
Abbreviated Journal |
Remote Sensing of Environment |
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247 |
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in press |
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Remote Sensing; Skyglow; Instrumentation |
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Satellite-observed night-time light in urban areas has been widely used as an indicator for socioeconomic development and light pollution. Up to present, the diurnal dynamics of city light during the night, which are important to understand the nature of human activity and the underlying variables explaining night-time brightness, have hardly been investigated by remote sensing techniques due to limitation of the revisit time and spatial resolution of available satellites. In this study, we employed a consumer-grade unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to monitor city light in a study area located in Wuhan City, China, from 8:08 PM, April 15, 2019 to 5:08 AM, April 16, 2019, with an hourly temporal resolution. By using three ground-based Sky Quality Meters (SQMs), we found that the UAV-recorded light brightness was consistent with the ground luminous intensity measured by the SQMs in both the spatial (R2 = 0.72) and temporal dimensions (R2 > 0.94), and that the average city light brightness was consistent with the sky brightness in the temporal dimension (R2 = 0.98), indicating that UAV images can reliably monitor the city's night-time brightness. The temporal analysis showed that different locations had different patterns of temporal changes in their night-time brightness, implying that inter-calibration of two kinds of satellite images with different overpass times would be a challenge. Combining an urban function map of 18 classes and the hourly UAV images, we found that urban functions differed in their temporal light dynamics. For example, the outdoor sports field lost 97.28% of its measured brightness between 8: 08 PM – 4:05 AM, while an administrative building only lost 4.56%, and the entire study area lost 61.86% of its total brightness. Within our study area, the period between 9:06 PM and 10:05 PM was the period with largest amount of light loss. The spectral analysis we conducted showed that city light colors were different in some urban functions, with the major road being the reddest region at 8:08 PM and becoming even redder at 4:05 AM. This preliminary study indicates that UAVs are a good tool to investigate city light at night, and that city light is very complex in both of the temporal and spatial dimensions, requiring comprehensive investigation using more advanced UAV techniques, and emphasizing the need for geostationary platforms for night-time light sensors. |
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GFZ @ kyba @ |
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3014 |
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Li, X.; Li, D.; Xu, H.; Wu, C. |

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Intercalibration between DMSP/OLS and VIIRS night-time light images to evaluate city light dynamics of Syria’s major human settlement during Syrian Civil War |
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Journal Article |
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2017 |
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International Journal of Remote Sensing |
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International Journal of Remote Sensing |
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38 |
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21 |
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5934-5951 |
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Remote Sensing; Instrumentation; Society |
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Monthly composites of night-time light acquired from the Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) had been used to evaluate socio-economic dynamics and human rights during the Syrian Civil War, which started in March 2011. However, DMSP/OLS monthly composites are not available subsequent to February 2014, and the only available night-time light composites for that period were acquired from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (Suomi NPP/VIIRS). This article proposes an intercalibration model to simulate DMSP/OLS composites from the VIIRS day-and-night band (DNB) composites, by using a power function for radiometric degradation and a Gaussian low pass filter for spatial degradation. The DMSP/OLS data and the simulated DMSP/OLS data were combined to estimate the city light dynamics in Syria’s major human settlement between March 2011 and January 2017. Our analysis shows that Syria’s major human settlement lost about 79% of its city light by January 2017, with Aleppo, Daraa, Deir ez-Zor, and Idlib provinces losing 89%, 90%, 96%, and 99% of their light, respectively, indicating that these four provinces were most affected by the war. We also found that the city light in Syria and 12 provinces rebounded from early 2016 to January 2017, possibly as a result of the peace negotiation signed in Geneva. |
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0143-1161 |
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GFZ @ kyba @ |
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1873 |
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Li, X.; Li, X.; Li, D.; He, X.; Jendryke, M. |

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Title |
A preliminary investigation of Luojia-1 night-time light imagery |
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Journal Article |
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2019 |
Publication |
Remote Sensing Letters |
Abbreviated Journal |
Remote Sensing Letters |
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10 |
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6 |
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526-535 |
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Remote Sensing; Instrumentation |
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Launched on 2 June 2018, Luojia-1 satellite records night-time light imagery at 130 m resolution, which is higher than most of the existing night-time light images to date. This study evaluated radiometric and spatial properties of the Luojia-1 satellite imagery for cities of Los Angeles, Wuhan and Rome as well as the change detection capability for Zunyi city. For the radiometric property, the analysis shows that the Luojia-1 images correlate well with the radiance of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS)’s Day and Night Band (DNB), and that the Luojia-1 images have a wider range of radiance values, as well as higher radiance values (e.g., 40%–90% higher) than the VIIRS DNB images. Using wavelet decomposition and change detection analysis to evaluate spatial property and change detection capability, it was found that the Luojia-1 images provide abundant spatial detail information, with about 20%–54% energy of wavelet component of the images stored in 100–400 m resolutions, and they can help to track the electrification of new roads and buildings at a fine resolution. This study shows that the Luojia-1 images are an effective data source for analysing spatiotemporal distribution of night-time light and its associated socioeconomic attributes. |
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2150-704X |
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GFZ @ kyba @ |
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2199 |
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Author  |
Li, X.; Ma, R.; Zhang, Q.; Li, D.; Liu, S.; He, T.; Zhao, L. |

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Title |
Anisotropic characteristic of artificial light at night – Systematic investigation with VIIRS DNB multi-temporal observations |
Type |
Journal Article |
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Year |
2019 |
Publication |
Remote Sensing of Environment |
Abbreviated Journal |
Remote Sensing of Environment |
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233 |
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111357 |
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Remote Sensing; Instrumentation |
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The released VIIRS DNB nightly images, also known as VIIRS DNB daily nighttime images, provide rich information for time series analysis of global socioeconomic dynamics. Anisotropic characteristic is a possible factor that influences the VIIRS DNB radiance at night and its time series analysis. This study aims to investigate the relationship between viewing angles and VIIRS DNB radiance of Suomi NPP satellite in urban areas. First, twenty-nine points were selected globally to explore the angle variation of Suomi NPP satellite views at night. We found that the variation of the satellite viewing zenith angle (VZA) is consistent (e.g. between 0° and 70°) since the range of VZA is fixed depending on the sensor design, and the range of viewing azimuth angle (VAA) increases with the increase of latitude. Second, thirty points in cities of Beijing, Houston, Los Angeles, Moscow, Quito and Sydney, were used to investigate the angle-radiance relationship. We proposed a zenith-radiance quadratic (ZRQ) model and a zenith-azimuth-radiance binary quadratic (ZARBQ) model to quantify the relationship between satellite viewing angles and artificial light radiance, which has been corrected by removing the moonlight and atmospheric impact from VIIRS DNB radiance products. For all the thirty points, the ZRQ and ZARBQ analysis have averaged R2 of 0.50 and 0.53, respectively, which indicates that the viewing angles are important factors influencing the variation of the artificial light radiance, but extending zenith to zenith-azimuth does not much better explain the variation of the observed artificial light. Importantly, based on the data analysis, we can make the hypothesis that building height may affect the relationship between VZA and artificial light, and cold and hot spot effects are clearly found in tall building areas. These findings are potentially useful to reconstruct more stable time series VIIRS DNB images for socioeconomic applications by removing the angular effects. |
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0034-4257 |
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GFZ @ kyba @ |
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2621 |
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