Building a Series of Consistent Night-Time Light Data (1992–2018) in Southeast Asia by Integrating DMSP-OLS and NPP-VIIRS

Abstract

Satellite-derived nighttime light (NTL) data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (NPP-VIIRS) have been extensively used for monitoring human activities and urbanization processes. Differences of these two datasets in their spatial and radiometric properties make it difficult for a temporally consistent analysis using these two datasets together. In this article, we developed a new approach to integrate these two datasets and generated a temporally consistent NTL dataset from 1992 to 2018. First, we performed the pixel-level spatial resampling of VIIRS data using a kernel density method after preprocessing the raw VIIRS data. Second, we conducted a logarithmic transformation of the aggregated VIIRS data. Third, we proposed a sigmoid function between DMSP and processed VIIRS data to characterize their relationship. Using the proposed method, we generated a series of consistent DMSP NTL data in Southeast Asia from 1992 to 2018 and analyzed the dynamic of resulted NTL at different scales. The evaluations based on profile curves, spatial patterns, scatter correlations, and histograms, of NTLs, indicate that our approach can achieve a good agreement between DMSP and simulated DMSP data in the same year. Our approach offers the potential for generating a time series of global DMSP NTL data from 1992 to present, which can contribute a more continuous and consistent monitoring of human activities and a better understanding of the urbanization process.