Where does night light matter? Monitoring access to electricity vs light pollution with high resolution night light EO sensors.
The majority of the Earth Observation missions focus on daytime monitoring. Nighttime monitoring has recently gained attention, through several high-impact studies (e.g.,Kyba et al., 2023; Kyba et al., 2017; Sánchez de Miguel et al., 2022), the societal relevance of the topic (e.g., health and biodiversity), and the increasing availability of high-resolution night lights sensors (e.g., SDGSat-1). The new generation of night light sensors provides images that allow the observation of spatial and temporal patterns of Artificial Light At Night Meeting (ALAN) within cities. Research questions relate to the observed patterns of night lights with links to environmental impacts and human impacts. For example, areas that are not connected or lost electricity connection can be observed (e.g., caused by disasters or conflicts). Aspects of the energy transition (e.g., shift to LED street lighting) can be observed as well as light pollution.
Relating night light (access and pollution) to socio-economic, demographic, health or societal conditions.
Depending on the objectives - the methodology could focus on
1. Acquire and combine Nighttime light (NTL) images from several sources (e.g., SDGSAT-1, ISS)
2. Interpret the composites and the patterns of light
3. Acquire or use existing socio-economic data (e.g., deprivation (poverty), land use/cover, health data etc.
4. Analyze the relation between deprivation/land use/cover/health etc and night light (pollution/presence).
References:
Abascal, A., Kyba, C., Hölker, F., Kuffer, M., Arroyo, H. L., Walczak, K., Miguel, A. S. D., Degen, T., & Roman, M. O. (2023). Mapping the Invisibles: Global Urban Inequalities through Night Lights. 2023 Joint Urban Remote Sensing Event (JURSE).
Kyba, C. C. M., Altıntaş, Y. Ö., Walker, C. E., & Newhouse, M. (2023). Citizen scientists report global rapid reductions in the visibility of stars from 2011 to 2022. Science, 379(6629), 265-268. https://doi.org/doi:10.1126/science.abq7781
Kyba, C. C. M., Kuester, T., Sánchez de Miguel, A., Baugh, K., Jechow, A., Hölker, F., Bennie, J., Elvidge, C. D., Gaston, K. J., & Guanter, L. (2017). Artificially lit surface of Earth at night increasing in radiance and extent. Science Advances, 3(11), e1701528. https://doi.org/doi:10.1126/sciadv.1701528
Sánchez de Miguel, A., Bennie, J., Rosenfeld, E., Dzurjak, S., & Gaston, K. J. (2022). Environmental risks from artificial nighttime lighting widespread and increasing across Europe. Science Advances, 8(37), eabl6891. https://doi.org/doi:10.1126/sciadv.abl6891
The topic can be adapted to link with TE/SIS modelling questions or SPG societal questions.