Can More Accurate Night-Time Remote Sensing Data Simulate a More Detailed Population Distribution?

Nannan Gao,Hui Zeng,Daniël Van Bilsen,Fen Li,Martin De Jong

doi:10.3390/su11164488

Abstract

Aging, shrinking cities, urban agglomerations and other new key terms continue to emerge when describing the large-scale population changes in various cities in mainland China. It is important to simulate the distribution of residential populations at a coarse scale to manage cities as a whole, and at a fine scale for policy making in infrastructure development. This paper analyzes the relationship between the DN (Digital number, value assigned to a pixel in a digital image) value of NPP-VIIRS (the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) and LuoJia1-01 and the residential populations of urban areas at a district, sub-district, community and court level, to compare the influence of resolution of remote sensing data by taking urban land use to map out auxiliary data in which first-class (R1), second-class (R2) and third-class residential areas (R3) are distinguished by house price. The results show that LuoJia1-01 more accurately analyzes population distributions at a court level for second- and third-class residential areas, which account for over 85% of the total population. The accuracy of the LuoJia1-01 simulation data is higher than that of Landscan and GHS (European Commission Global Human Settlement) population. This can be used as an important tool for refining the simulation of residential population distributions. In the future, higher-resolution night-time light data could be used for research on accurate simulation analysis that scales down large-scale populations.

Highlights

Population changes are the driving force behind urban development and a key factor in the development of urban service industries
The ability to quickly and accurately obtain information on refined urban population changes affects the timeliness of government regulation and control, and affects the public’s satisfaction with living conditions in a city
Based on the above research experience, the goal of this paper is to (1) find out if the spatial resolution of remote sensing data affects the accuracy of the research results; (2) explore whether the use of higher resolution night-time light data (LuoJia1-01) can reduce the minimum unit of analysis that is significantly relevant to the population, such as sub-districts, communities or finer scales; and (3) investigate whether there is a significant correlation between the high-resolution LuoJia1-01 night-time lighting data and the statistical population data of different types of residential areas in the presence of ancillary data

Summary

Introduction

Population changes are the driving force behind urban development and a key factor in the development of urban service industries. Distribution of populations has an important impact on society, the economy and physical environments [1]. Population distribution affects important factors such as city size, pollution distribution and urban economic development. Refined modeling of small-scale population distribution forms the basis for improving city management and the construction of livable cities. The ability to quickly and accurately obtain information on refined urban population changes affects the timeliness of government regulation and control, and affects the public’s satisfaction with living conditions in a city. Various cities in mainland China are encountering large-scale population changes. Some cities experience large-scale population inflows caused by the formation of metropolitan areas. Other cities undergo drastic shrinkage due to weak economic structures and unfavorable locations [2]

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