Spatiotemporal Evolution of West Africa's Urban Landscape Characteristics Applying Harmonized DMSP-OLS and NPP-VIIRS Nighttime Light (NTL) Data

Douglas Sono; Ye Wei; Zuoqi Chen; Ying Jin

doi:10.1007/s11769-022-1313-1

Spatiotemporal Evolution of West Africa's Urban Landscape Characteristics Applying Harmonized DMSP-OLS and NPP-VIIRS Nighttime Light (NTL) Data

Chin Geogr Sci. 2022;32(6):933-945. doi: 10.1007/s11769-022-1313-1. Epub 2022 Nov 14.

Authors

Douglas Sono¹, Ye Wei^{1

2}, Zuoqi Chen^{3

4}, Ying Jin⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Geographical Sciences, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, 130024 China.
² Natural Resources Institute of Jilin Province, Changchun, 130024 China.
³ Key Laboratory of Spatial Data Mining and Information Sharing of Ministry of Education, National & Local Joint Engineering Research Center of Satellite Geospatial Information Technology, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, 35002 China.
⁴ The Academy of Digital China, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, 350002 China.
⁵ School of Humanities and Law, Northeastern University, Shenyang, 110169 China.

Abstract

Investigating urban expansion patterns aids in the management of urbanization and in ameliorating the socioeconomic and environmental issues associated with economic transformation and sustainable development. Applying Harmonized Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational Line-scan System (DMSP-OLS) and the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership-Visible Infrared Imagery Radiometer Suite (NPP-VIIRS) Nighttime Light (NTL) data, this paper investigated the characteristics of urban landscape in West Africa. Using the harmonized NTL data, spatial comparison and empirical threshold methods were employed to detect urban changes from 1993 to 2018. We examined the rate of urban change and calculated the direction of the urban expansion of West Africa using the center-of-gravity method for urban areas. In addition, we used the landscape expansion index method to assess the processes and stages of urban growth in West Africa. The accuracy of urban area extraction based on NTL data were R ² = 0.8314 in 2000, R ² = 0.8809 in 2006, R ² = 0.9051 in 2012 for the DMSP-OLS and the simulated NPP-VIIRS was R ² = 0.8426 in 2018, by using Google Earth images as validation. The results indicated that there was a high rate and acceleration of urban landscapes in West Africa, with rates of 0.016 0, 0.017 3, 0.018 9, and 0.068 6, and accelerations of 0.31, 0.42, 0.54, and 0.90 for the periods of 1998-2003, 2003-2008, 2008-2013, and 2013-2018, respectively. The expansion direction of urban agglomeration in West Africa during 1993-2018 was mainly from the coast to inland. However, cities located in the Sahel Region of Africa and in the middle zone expanded from north to south. Finally, the results showed that the urban landscape of West Africa was mainly in a scattered and disordered 'diffusion' process, whereas only a few cities located in coastal areas experiencing the process of 'coalescence' according to urban growth phase theory. This study provides urban planners with relevant insights for the urban expansion characteristics of West Africa.

Keywords: DMSP-OLS (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational Linescan System); NPP-VIIRS (Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership-Visible Infrared Imagery Radiometer Suite); West Africa; nighttime light remote sensing; spatiotemporal evolution; urban expansion.