![]() ElvidgeĬhanges in the intensity of nighttime lights can be used to illustrate Lighting changes between January 19 and February 4, 2020, in Jianghan District, a commercial area of Wuhan, China, as retrieved by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The data provides a compelling and striking picture of the large-scale impacts of COVID-19 on Earth, from the impacts of the pandemic on businesses and transportation networks to monitoring the gradual recovery of cities around the world. ![]() Nighttime light observations are becoming a primary source of data for tracking the progress of the pandemic and its impacts. Recently, researchers have also shown that nighttime lights can even help explain brain development and human behavior. Nighttime lights are being used to measure the extent and characteristics of urbanization processes estimate economic growth at both national and subnational levels map global poverty as well as population density, migration, and mobility patterns track local household wealth, education, and health understand armed conflicts measure access to electricity and electrification as well as community resilience, fishing activity, coral reef health, and more. The presence of lighting at night across the globe is almost entirely due to some form of human activity. Nighttime light (NTL) imagery is unique among remote sensing data sources because it provides a uniquely ‘human’ view of the Earth’s surface. Nighttime lights offer an alternative, effective, and visually impactful method of identifying under-developed areas and facilitating more optimal allocation of resources. Several proxy metrics of human socio-economic activity have been developed using this night-time imagery. One source of such data is the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS). Images of the Earth at night obtained from satellite data have become a spatially clear worldwide depiction of human presence and activity on the globe. However, accelerated human modifications of the landscape and human activities are profoundly affecting the processes on the Earth's surface, both locally and globally, creating a variety of challenges for scientists and policymakers in understanding global change and its repercussions. These insights can improve decision-making to guide policy, deliver services, and improve governance in near real-time. The increasing availability of remotely-sensed measurements of nighttime light intensity across space and time opens the door to new possibilities to understand how the Earth is changing. This blog is the fourth in a series of four in which workshop participants reflect on the uses of remotely-sensed and geospatial data. 3ie and New Light Technologies co-led a series of capacity-building workshops with 10 researchers from the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) on the potential to use remotely-sensed geospatial data for impact evaluations.
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