Abstract
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. This study proposes a simple method for monitoring PM2.5 concentrations at night by using nighttime light imagery from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS). This research synthesizes remote sensing and geographic information system techniques and establishes a back propagation neural-network (BP network) model. The BP network model for nighttime light data performed well in estimating the PM2.5 pollution in Beijing. The correlation coefficient between the BP network model predictions and the corrected PM2.5 concentration was 0.975; the root mean square error was 26.26 μg/m3, with a corresponding average PM2.5 concentration of 155.07 μg/m3; and the average accuracy was 0.796. The accuracy of the results primarily depended on the method of selecting regions in the DMSP nighttime light data. This study provides an opportunity to measure the nighttime environment. Furthermore, these results can assist government agencies in determining particulate matter pollution control areas and developing and implementing environmental conservation planning.
Highlights
Aerosols have extensive impacts on our climate and our environment [1], and tropospheric aerosols ( known as particulate matter (PM)), in particular, can cause adverse effects on public health [2].Epidemiologic studies indicate strong links between the concentrations of PM with aerodynamic diameters of less than 10 μm and less than 2.5 μm (PM10 or PM2.5, respectively) with public morbidity, respiratory-related mortality and cardiovascular diseases [3,4,5,6,7,8]
The Chinese government has enacted ambient air quality standards [11], which limit the values of PM2.5 concentrations and set air pollution classification rules
Higher gain settings are associated with larger numbers of detected pixels in the nighttime light imagery (Figure 2)
Summary
Aerosols have extensive impacts on our climate and our environment [1], and tropospheric aerosols ( known as particulate matter (PM)), in particular, can cause adverse effects on public health [2]. The concentration of PM has become an important index of air pollution and has gained more and more attention from the administrations and organizations of environmental protection, public health and science around the world. Both the European Union (1999) and the United States have set air quality standards that dictate strict limits on PM concentrations in the ambient air. With the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, PM has become the primary air pollutant in most major cities in China [9] This pollution threatens people’s health, and causes decreases atmospheric visibility and degrades city scenery [10]. This article is organized as follows: Section 2 describes our study area and data; presents the analysis of the nighttime light responses to PM2.5 concentrations from both the spatial and temporal perspectives; Section 3 verifies the findings from this study, and discusses future work; and Section 4 summarizes the discoveries of this study
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