Mapping urbanization dynamics at regional and global scales using multi-temporal DMSP/OLS nighttime light data

Urban areas concentrate people, economic activity, and the built environment. As such, urbanization is simultaneously a demographic, economic, and land-use change phenomenon. Historically, the remote sensing community has used optical remote sensing data to map urban areas and the expansion of urban land-cover for individual cities, with little research focused on regional and global scale patterns of urban change. However, recent research indicates that urbanization at regional scales is growing in importance for economics, policy, land use planning, and conservation. Therefore, there is an urgent need to understand and monitor urbanization dynamics at regional and global scales. Here, we illustrate the use of multi-temporal nighttime light (NTL) data from the U.S Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellites Program/Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) to monitor urban change at regional and global scales. We use independently derived data on population, land use and land cover to test the ability of multi-temporal NTL data to measure regional and global urban growth over time. We apply an iterative unsupervised classification method on multi-temporal NTL data from 1992 to 2008 to map urbanization dynamics in India, China, Japan, and the United States. For two-year intervals between 1992 and 2000, India consistently experienced higher rates of urban growth than China, and both countries exceeded the urban growth rates of the United States and Japan. This is not surprising given that the populations of India and China were growing faster than those of the U.S. and Japan during those periods. For two-year intervals between 2000 and 2008, China experienced higher rates of urban growth than India. Results show that the multi-temporal NTL provides a regional and potentially global measure of the spatial and temporal changes in urbanization dynamics for countries at certain levels of GDP and population-driven growth.

Research highlights
► We map urbanization dynamics at regional and global scales with nighttime light data.
► Differences in urbanization trajectories can be identified using temporal signatures.
► We use an iterative clustering method to distinguish stable urban from urban growth.
► From 1992 through 2000 India experienced higher rates of urbanization than China.
► From 2000 through 2008 China experienced higher rates of urbanization than India.