Zhifeng Liu^a,b, Chunyang He^a,b, Qiaofeng Zhang^c, Qingxu Huang^d, Yang Yang^a,b

^a State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;

^b College of Resources Science & Technology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;

^c Department of Geosciences, Murray State University, Murray, KY 42071, USA;

^d Department of Geography, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1.

 

Abstract: Timely and accurate information about the dynamics of urban expansion is vital to reveal the relationships between urban expansion and the ecosystem, to optimize land use patterns, and to promote the effective development of cities in China. Nighttime stable light data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Line-scan System (DMSP-OLS) Nighttime Lights Time Series dataset provide a new source of information that can quickly reveal the dynamics of urban expansion. However, the DMSPOLS sensor has no on-board calibration, which makes it difficult to directly compare time series data from multiple satellites. This study developed a new method for systematically correcting multi-year multi-satellite nighttime stable lights data and rapidly extracting the dynamics of urban expansion based on this corrected data for China from 1992 to 2008. The results revealed that the proposed method effectively reduced abnormal discrepancy within the nighttime stable light data and improved continuity and comparability. The dynamics of urban expansion in China from 1992 to 2008 were extracted with an average overall accuracy of 82.74% and an average Kappa of 0.40.

 

Keywords: China; DMSP-OLS; Information extraction; Nighttime stable light; Urban expansion.