Author(s)

Ye Yu, Pengfei Gong

Corresponding Author

Ye Yu

ABSTRACT

Remotely sensed nighttime light (NTL) data can measure nocturnal artificial lighting on Earth's surface and be used to monitor urbanization dynamics. As car ownership at the city level is closely associated with urbanization, NTL data and car ownership time series are likely to be connected. This study is to set out to explore potential association between car ownership and NTL data. Based on data of prefecture-level cities in Jiangsu province, this study empirically examines how and to what extent car ownership associates with nighttime light brightness. The results show that the number of lit pixels with large digital number in NTL imagery is closely connected with prefecture-level car ownership.

KEYWORDS

Car Ownership Estimation, Nighttime Light Data, Association, Random Forest