Abstract
The new visible infrared imaging radiometer suite (VIIRS) onboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-20 satellite (NOAA-20) is capable of imaging the Earth during both daytime and nighttime. The NOAA-20 VIIRS’ day/night band (DNB) enables a new generation of nighttime imaging applications. However, few studies investigated the ability of NOAA-20 DNB nighttime light data in modeling socioeconomic indicators [such as the gross domestic product (GDP) and electric power consumption (EPC)] and extracting urban areas. In this article, we first used a simple linear regression model to investigate the potential of NOAA-20 nighttime light data for estimating GDP and EPC at multiple scales; we then extracted urban areas from NOAA-20 nighttime light data by using support vector machines. Taking mainland China as the study area, we found that the correlation coefficient of determination <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">R</i> <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> between NOAA-20 nighttime light data and GDP/EPC at both provincial and prefectural scales are higher than 0.7. By comparing the results with NPP-VIIRS nighttime light data, similar <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">R</i> <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> values were obtained at both two scales, indicating that NOAA-20 nighttime light data and NPP-VIIRS data are comparable in estimating socioeconomic indicators. Moreover, NOAA-20 also shows a similar detection ability with NPP-VIIRS in extracting urban areas. This article demonstrated that NOAA-20 and NPP-VIIRS are comparable in economic statistics estimation and urban area extraction. The NOAA-20 nighttime light data can be a useful data source for enlightening more applications in the fields of socioeconomic and urban studies.
Highlights
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-20 (NOAA-20, N20) satellite was successfully launched on November 18, 2017
The results indicate that N20-Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and National Polar Orbit Partnership (NPP)-VIIRS have similar accuracies in estimating gross domestic product (GDP) and electric power consumption (EPC) at the provincial level
The results indicate that N20-VIIRS and NPP-VIIRS data have similar accuracies in estimating prefecture-level GDP and EPC
Summary
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-20 (NOAA-20, N20) satellite was successfully launched on November 18, 2017. It is the latest generation of U.S polarorbiting non-geosynchronous environmental satellites. Similar to the Suomi NPP satellite, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), a whiskbroom scanning radiometer, is one of the key instruments on board the N20 satellite. VIIRS has 22 spectral bands covering the spectrum between 0.412 μm and 12.01 μm, including 16 moderate-resolution bands with a 750-m spatial resolution of at nadir, five imaging resolution bands with a 375m spatial resolution at nadir, and one panchromatic Day/Night Band (DNB) with a 750-m spatial resolution. The panchromatic DNB, with spectral coverage from 0.50 μm to 0.90 μm, which allows the detection of night lights, reflected solar and/or moonlights, enables us to generate a new set of high-quality nighttime products
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