Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinformation 85 (2020) 101989

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Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinformation

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jag

Analyzing parcel-level relationships between Luojia 1-01 nighttime light T

intensity and artificial surface features across Shanghai, China: A
comparison with NPP-VIIRS data
Congxiao Wanga,b, Zuoqi Chena,b, Chengshu Yanga,b, Qiaoxuan Lia,b, Qiusheng Wuc,
Jianping Wua,b, Guo Zhangd,**, Bailang Yua,b,*
a
Key Laboratory of Geographic Information Science (Ministry of Education), East China Normal University, 500 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200241, China
b
School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University, 500 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200241, China
c
Department of Geography, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
d
State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, 129 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430079, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Nighttime light (NTL) remote sensing data have been widely used to derive socioeconomic indices at national
Luojia 1-01 and regional scales. However, few studies analyzed the factors that may explain NTL variations at a fine scale
Nighttime light due to the limited resolution of existing NTL data. As a new generation NTL satellite, Luojia 1-01 provides NTL
Land-use/land-cover data with a finer spatial resolution of ∼130 m and can be used to assess the relationship between NTL intensity
Points-of-interest
and artificial surface features on an unprecedented scale. This study represents the first efforts to assess the
Random forest regression
relationship between Luojia 1-01 NTL intensity and artificial surface features at the parcel level in comparison to
High spatial resolution
the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership-Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (NPP-VIIRS) NTL data.
Points-of-interest (POIs) and land-use/land-cover (LULC) data were used in random forest (RF) regression
models for both Luojia 1-01 and NPP-VIIRS to analyze the feature contribution of artificial surface features to
NTL intensity. The results show that luminosity variations in Luojia 1-01 data for different land-use types were
more significant than those in NPP-VIIRS data because of the finer spatial resolution and wider measurement
range. Seventeen variables extracted from POI and LULC data explained the Luojia 1-01 and NPP-VIIRS NTL
intensity, with a good out-of-bag score of 0.62 and 0.76, respectively. Moreover, Luojia 1-01 data had fewer
“blooming” phenomena than NPP-VIIRS data, especially for cropland, water body, and rural area. Luojia 1-01 is
more suitable for estimating socioeconomic activities and can attain more comprehensive information on human
activities, since the feature contribution of POI variables is more sensitive to NTL intensity in the Luojia 1-01 RF
regression model than that in the NPP-VIIRS RF regression model.

1. Introduction have a statistically significant relationship with socioeconomic indices,

Due to the rapid increase in human activities, transportation con-
struction, and urban expansion, artificial lights are prevalent in most
urban areas (Falchi et al., 2011; Gaston et al., 2013). Nighttime light
(NTL) remote sensing data can record artificial lights at night and have
been proven to be a useful proxy for measuring the intensity of human
activities (Elvidge et al., 1997; Huang et al., 2014). NTL data generally
such as population (Sutton et al., 2001; Ye et al., 2019; Zhao et al.,
2019a), gross domestic product (Lo, 2002; Zhao et al., 2017), poverty
(Yu et al., 2015), house vacancy (Chen et al., 2015; Lu et al., 2018),
carbon dioxide emissions (Liu et al., 2018; Ou et al., 2013), and elec-
tricity consumption (Shi et al., 2018). To further explore the relation-
ship between NTL data and socioeconomic indices, a comprehensive
understanding of NTL data, especially regarding its spatial variability

Abbreviations: DMSP-OLS, Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational Linescan System; DN, digital number; LULC, land-use/land-cover; NPP-VIIRS,
Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership-Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite; NTL, nighttime light; POIs, points-of-interest; RF, random forest
⁎
Corresponding author at: Key Laboratory of Geographic Information Science (Ministry of Education), East China Normal University, 500 Dongchuan Road,
Shanghai 200241, China.
⁎⁎
Corresponding author at: State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, 129 Luoyu Road,
Wuhan 430079, China.
E-mail addresses: guozhang@whu.edu.cn (G. Zhang), blyu@geo.ecnu.edu.cn (B. Yu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2019.101989
Received 18 April 2019; Received in revised form 23 September 2019; Accepted 7 October 2019
Available online 12 November 2019
1569-8432/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).
C. Wang, et al.
Table 1
Key specifications of the three nighttime light satellites, including the Defense
Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS),
Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership-Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer
Suite (NPP-VIIRS), and Luojia 1-01.
DMSP-OLS NPP-VIIRS Luojia 1-01
Swath ∼3000 km ∼3000 km ∼250 km
Spectrum 0.5–0.9 μm 0.5–0.9 μm 0.46–0.98 μm
Quantization 6 bits 14 bits 14 bits
Calibration N/A On-board On-board
calibration calibration
Spatial resolution 2.7 km 750 m ∼130 m
Time span 1992–2013 2011–present 2018–present
Spatial coverage Globe from 75 °N Globe from 75 °N to Parts of the globe
to 65 °S 65 °S
and factors influencing NTL variations, is crucial.
Two widely used NTL products are the Defense Meteorological
Satellite Program-Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) stable NTL
data and Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership-Visible Infrared
Imaging Radiometer Suite (NPP-VIIRS) NTL data (Imhoff et al., 1997).
As a new generation NTL satellite, Luojia 1-01 was launched on June 2,
2018 by Wuhan University, China (Jiang et al., 2018; Li et al., 2019).
Compared with DMSP-OLS and NPP-VIIRS, Luojia 1-01 acquires NTL
data at a finer spatial resolution (∼130 m) with 14-bit quantization (see
Table 1). Jiang et al. (2018) investigated artificial light pollution using
Luojia 1-01 and NPP-VIIRS data and concluded that the former can be
effectively used. Li et al. (2018) found that Luojia 1-01 achieved a
higher accuracy of urban extent extraction than NPP-VIIRS data. Ou
et al. (2019) evaluated the capability of Luojia 1-01 data for detecting
the extent and degree of impervious surfaces and compared it to that of
NPP-VIIRS data. It was found that Luojia 1-01 data could produce a
more precise map of impervious surfaces but failed to provide reliable
estimates of the degree of imperviousness. Nevertheless, Luojia 1-01,
with an improved NTL-intensity detection performance, enables a de-
tailed look into artificial surface lighting distribution. Analyses of the
relationship between different artificial surface features and NTL in-
tensity and knowledge of its determinants could lead to a better un-
derstanding of these data and their future applications.
The responses of DMSP-OLS and NPP-VIIRS NTL signals to different
land-use/land-cover (LULC) types have been analyzed previously (Li
et al., 2014; Ma, 2018). Li et al. (2014) developed an unmixing model
to quantify the contribution of each land-use type to DMSP-OLS and
NPP-VIIRS NTL data. Ma (2018) focused on the pixel-level connection
between land features and NPP-VIIRS NTL intensity. In general, NTL
intensity in urban areas tends to be much higher than that in other
regions. However, some small built-up areas far away from urban
centers might not be captured by NPP-VIIRS due to its limited spatial
resolution. Recent studies have attempted to use points-of-interest
(POIs) data to determine the relationship between NTL intensity and
human activities. Chen et al. (2017) analyzed the relationship between
POIs and DMSP-OLS NTL data at the parcel level and concluded that
NTL from shopping and enterprise POIs contributed much more to the
DMSP-OLS NTL intensity than the other two POI categories (i.e., re-
sidential and factory). Above all, artificial surface features, whether
they are LULC represented by the use of the ground surface or POIs
represented by comprehensive human activities, affected NTL varia-
tions to a greater or lesser extent. However, few studies have in-
vestigated the relationship between NTL intensity and artificial surface
features (LULC and POIs) at the parcel level.
Random forest (RF) models are increasingly being used as classifiers
or regression models in remote sensing applications (Adam et al., 2012;
Mutanga et al., 2012; Stumpf and Kerle, 2011; Ye et al., 2019; Zhao
et al., 2019a). RF regression models have recently been successfully
applied in gridded population mapping and human activity detection
using NTL remote sensing data combined with other multi-source
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Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinformation 85 (2020) 101989
remote sensing data (Chen et al., 2019; Ye et al., 2019). RF regression
models can identify the relationship between dependent and in-
dependent variables as well as the corresponding contribution of in-
dependent variables to a dependent variable (Breiman, 2001). How-
ever, few studies have focused on factors that could explain the NTL
intensity of Luojia 1-01 imagery, since Luojia 1-01 is a new generation
of NTL remote sensing satellite. We therefore compared the differences
in the contribution of artificial surface features between Luojia 1-01 and
NPP-VIIRS data and determined the specific contribution of each fea-
ture to NTL density level, which complements existing studies mainly
focused on the mesoscale relationships between NTL and socio-
economic variables.
The objectives of this study are: (i) to determine the contribution of
each artificial surface feature to Luojia 1-01 and NPP-VIIRS NTL data,
(ii) to establish the characteristics of Luojia 1-01 NTL data compared to
NPP-VIIRS NTL data, and (iii) to indicate situations to which can Luojia
1-01 NTL data be applied. To fulfill these objectives, we first introduce
our study area (Shanghai, China) and datasets used in this study. The
datasets contained Luojia 1-01 and NPP-VIIRS NTL data for compar-
ison, artificial surface features (POIs and LULC) to explain the NTL
variations, and OpenStreetMap data to generate parcels. We subse-
quently describe our methods: Data preprocessing, such as geometric
correction and radiometric calibration, were employed for Luojia 1-01
data to ensure that it can be compared with NPP-VIIRS data. RF re-
gression models were constructed to analyze the relationship between
NTL intensity and artificial surface features. We then discuss the RF
regression model fitting and feature contribution of different variables
in the RF models. Finally, the advantages, disadvantages, and future
applications of Luojia 1-01 compared to NPP-VIIRS are discussed.
2. Study area and datasets
2.1. Study area
Shanghai is located on the east coast of China (Fig. 1). Its municipal
administrative area covers around 6000 km2. In 2015, its population
was 24.15 million, with a population density of 3809 people/km2.
Shanghai has been China’s largest economic center since 1850 (Yue
et al., 2014). As one of the fastest growing cities in the world, Shanghai
has been experiencing extensive urban expansion with an annual
growth rate of 5.80% from 1978 to 2015 (Fei and Zhao, 2019). Along
with rapid urbanization and dramatic changes in urban spatial patterns,
changes in artificial light are also noticeable in this metropolitan area.
2.2. Datasets
Five datasets were used in this study, including two NTL datasets
(i.e., NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01) for comparative analyses, LULC and
POI datasets for providing artificial surface feature context, and
OpenStreetMap data for generating a parcel map.
2.2.1. NTL data
The version 1 product of NPP-VIIRS NTL monthly composite data of
July 2018 (https://eogdata.mines.edu/download_dnb_composites.html,
accessed July 2019) was used in this study (Fig. 2(a)). The composite
data were generated by eliminating pixels contaminated by cloud
cover, lunar illumination, or other factors and averaging the data col-
lected daily by the Day–Night Band from NPP-VIIRS in a specific month.
Its unit is nW cm−2 sr-1 and spatial resolution is about 500 m (Shi et al.,
2014a). The NPP-VIIRS NTL data were projected to the Albers Equal
Area Conic projection. To correct pixels with erroneous values, the
preprocessing procedure proposed by Shi et al. (2014b) was performed.
Luojia 1-01 is a new generation of NTL remote sensing satellite
launched on June 2, 2018. It is a sun-synchronous satellite with a ca-
pacity of covering the earth within 15 days. Luojia 1-01 is equipped
with a more sensitive complementary metal oxide–semiconductor
C. Wang, et al.
Fig. 1. Location of our study area - Shanghai, China.
sensor with 14-bit quantization (Table 1), making it superior to DMSP-
OLS and NPP-VIIRS. Its unit is W·m−2 sr-1 μm-1, and we converted the
unit to nW cm−2 sr-1 for the convenience of comparison. Luojia 1-01 has
a higher spatial resolution of ∼130 m with a swath of 250 km. In this
study, Luojia 1-01 NTL data from July 14, 2018 were used (Fig. 2(b)).
Luojia1-01 data were obtained from the High-Resolution Earth Ob-
servation System of the Hubei Data and Application Center (http://59.
175.109.173:8888/, accessed June 2019). As shown in Fig. 2(c), the
ground control point (red cross) was located at a three-way junction.
However, this point in Fig. 2(d) shifted slightly (approximately 3
pixels). To improve the data quality, geometric correction was required
for further applications.
2.2.2. Artificial surface feature datasets
The artificial surface feature datasets consisted of two components:
an LULC dataset and POI dataset. The LULC dataset was provided by the
Data Center for Resources and Environmental Sciences, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, and has been produced every five years since
1990 (Liu et al., 2002). The 2015 LULC dataset was updated from the
2010 LULC map via visual interpretation of a set of Landsat 8 images.
The produced LULC dataset had a spatial resolution of 30 m. Six LULC
categories were identified in the dataset, namely cropland, woodland,
grassland, water body, unused land, and built-up area. Each category
had several sub-categories. Built-up area had two sub-categories: urban
and rural areas. The former refers to the built-up land in cities and
counties and the latter to rural settlements. Since artificial NTL in-
tensity is strongly correlated with both urban and rural areas (Ma,
2018) and the difference in NTL intensity between the two is
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Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinformation 85 (2020) 101989
significant, we reclassified the initial LULC categories into seven types:
cropland, woodland, grassland, water body, unused land, urban area,
and rural area. Fig. 3(a) illustrates the spatial distribution of built-up
land in the study area, including urban and rural areas.
The POI dataset was collected from Baidu Map (https://maps.baidu.
com, accessed June 2019), which consists of more than 20 types of
artificial surface features. The initial 449,808 POIs were aggregated
into 22 categories, namely auto service, bank, clinic, commercial
building, education facility, enterprise, entertainment, exhibition
center, factory, government agency, hairdressing, hospital, hotel,
market, media, public facility, shopping mall, sport, transportation,
residential community, restaurant, and retail. We generated a POI
density map by counting the number of POIs in each parcel. Fig. 3(b)
illustrates the parcel-level density of enterprise POIs as an example.
Although spurious social data may occur, the overall pattern (or dis-
tribution) can be accurately reflected by a large number of POIs.
2.2.3. OpenStreetMap data
The road network data from OpenStreetMap (http://www.
openstreepmap.org, accessed June 2019) include several road types,
such as motorway, trunk road, primary road, secondary road, and re-
sidential road. We generated parcels for our study using the
OpenStreetMap road network data. Parcels are polygons bounded by
road networks, which serve as natural segmentation boundaries of
urban areas (Hu et al., 2016; Zheng et al., 2018). To remove un-
necessary details (e.g., overpasses), we removed small pathways and
selected motorways, trunk roads, primary, secondary, and tertiary
roads to segment the parcels. Different road widths were used for
C. Wang, et al.
Fig. 3. Spatial distribution of artificial surface features: (a) land-use/land-cover dataset of urban and rural areas, and (b) parcel-level density of enterprise POIs.
different road levels, e.g., 30, 30, 20, 17, and 10 m for motorways,
trunk roads, primary roads, secondary roads, and tertiary roads, re-
spectively. Land parcels bounded by roads were generated after re-
moving road spaces. Finally, we removed land parcels smaller than 0.02
km2. After parcel generation, 4360 parcels were obtained for the entire
area. The largest parcel was 192.76 km2 and the smallest was 0.03 km2.
The average parcel size was 1.48 km2.
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Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinformation 85 (2020) 101989
Fig. 2. Samples of two nighttime light (NTL)
datasets of the study area: (a) NPP-VIIRS NTL
data and (b) Luojia 1-01 NTL data as well as a
ground control point (red crosses) in (c)
Landsat 8 imagery and (d) Luojia 1-01 NTL
data (For interpretation of the references to
colour in this figure legend, the reader is re-
ferred to the web version of this article).
3. Methods
Our methods involved three main steps: (i) data preprocessing, (ii)
feature extraction, and (iii) model building and analysis. Fig. 4 shows
the methodological framework for analyzing the relationship between
NTL intensity (from NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01 data) and artificial
surface features at the parcel level. First, data preprocessing, including
geometric correction and radiometric calibration, was performed on the
C. Wang, et al.
Fig. 4. Methodological framework for quantifying the relationship between nighttime light intensity and artificial surface features. LULC: land-use/land-cover; NPP-
VIIRS: Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership-Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite; OSM: OpenStreetMap; POIs: points-of-interest.
Luojia 1-01 data. Then, the entire study area was segmented into par-
cels based on road networks and urban boundaries. Based on the parcel
map, we built the parcel-level feature datasets that contained NTL
density (NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01) and artificial surface features. The
latter comprised two components: LULC and POI variables. We used 29
variables after standardization and the NTL density of each parcel to
build the RF regression models, which were used to investigate the
explanatory ability of artificial surface feature datasets for parcel-level
NTL intensity. Before building the models, we compared the luminosity
variations with artificial surface features. The parcel datasets were di-
vided into two types: training and test parcels. After model building and
parameter optimization, we tested the performance of the RF regression
models and compared the feature contribution variation for NPP-VIIRS
and Luojia 1-01 NTL intensity.
3.1. Data preprocessing
Considering that Luojia 1-01 NTL images contained slight geo-re-
ferencing errors compared with Landsat 8 images, a geometric correc-
tion was performed on the Luojia 1-01 images to reduce geometric
errors based on the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager-Thermal
Infrared Sensor (http://www.gscloud.cn/, accessed August 2018) and
OpenStreetMap road network. Twenty evenly distributed ground con-
trol points were selected from the Luojia 1-01 NTL image, and the root
mean square error was 0.165 pixels (approximately 21.46 m) after
geometric correction. Through this preprocessing, the geometric posi-
tioning error of the experimental images was reduced. A radiometric
calibration for Luojia 1-01 data was subsequently performed to ensure
that the NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01 NTL data could be compared. We
converted the digital numbers (DN) to radiance for accurate analysis of
lighting brightness and discrepancy. The radiance value was calculated
via Eq. (1):
3 model requires selecting samples for model training. Training samples
L= 10−10D 2 W
−2
where L is the radiance of a pixel in the Luojia 1-01 image (W m sr-1),
D denotes the DN value of a pixel, and W is the bandwidth of 0.52 μm,
since the radiometric range of Luojia 1-01 is 0.46–0.98 μm. After cal-
culating the radiance of each pixel, L in the study area ranged from 0 to
6174.07 nW cm−2 sr-1.
Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinformation 85 (2020) 101989
After geometric correction and radiometric calibration, we ag-
gregated the area of each LULC type and the number of POIs in each
POI category as the predictor variables for the RF regression models to
estimate the sum of NTL intensity at the parcel level. Overall, we ex-
plored a total of 29 variables, each of which had different units and
ranges. To facilitate their comparison, normalized each variable using
Eq. (2):
Xij-min(Xi )
X sij =
max(Xi )-min(Xi ) (2)
where Xsij is the standardized value for variable i at parcel j; Xij is the
value at parcel j; Xi is variable i; and max (Xi ) and min (Xi ) are the
maximum and minimum values of variable Xi , respectively.
3.2. RF regression models
An RF regression model is an ensemble-learning algorithm that
improves the regression trees method by using a large set of decision
trees (Breiman, 2001). RF regression models have been applied in
various fields, such as biomass estimation (Mutanga et al., 2012) and
population mapping (Stevens et al., 2015; Ye et al., 2019), showing
high accuracy and the ability to model complex interactions between
different variables. More details about the formulated RF regression
models can be found in Breiman (2001).
The main parameters in RF regression models include the number of
estimators (number of regression trees grown based on a bootstrap
sample of the observations), max features (number of features to con-
sider when looking for the best split), max depth (maximum depth of the
tree), min splits samples (minimum number of samples required to split
an internal node), min leaf samples (minimum number of samples re-
quired to be at a leaf node), and oob score (the generalization accuracy
using out-of-bag samples). As a supervised algorithm, the RF regression
(1)
are selected using the bootstrap method, and the RF regression models
are trained after optimizing the above parameters using a cross-vali-
dated method. The oob score represents the float score of the training
dataset obtained using an out-of-bag estimate. The Gini importance is
derived from the loss of model prediction accuracy when the values of
one variable are permuted between instances (Breiman, 2001). The Gini
5
C. Wang, et al.
importance of each predictor is measured by calculating the percentage
of increase in root mean square error when oob data for each variable
are permuted while all others remain unchanged. The variable selection
method (Guyon and Elisseeff, 2003; Mutanga et al., 2012; Zhao et al.,
2019b) used in this study filtered the unrelated variables and offered
the best simulation of the RF according to Gini importance. Feature
contributions represent the contributions of the variables to the pre-
diction in an RF model (Kuz’min et al., 2011), which provides detailed
information about the relationships between the predictor and outcome
variables. The feature contribution procedure for a given instance in-
volves two steps: (i) calculation of the local increments of feature
contributions for each tree and (ii) aggregation of the feature con-
tributions over the forest (Palczewska et al., 2014).
In this study, RF regression models were constructed using the
sklearn Python package. The artificial surface features (variables ex-
tracted from LULC types and POIs) were considered to be the predictor
variables, and the NPP-VIIRS or Luojia 1-01 NTL intensity was re-
spectively considered to be the outcome variable. The number of esti-
mators values from 10 to 500 with an interval of 10 were tested, and the
max depth, min split sample, min leaf samples, and max features values
were tested from 1 to 100 using a single interval. We removed each
artificial surface variable in a descending order of Gini importance from
the predictor variable datasets to identify the related predictor vari-
ables that could offer the best RF regression model. The optimization of
variable numbers required for the simulation was determined using the
oob score. Feature contributions were used to measure the influence of
artificial surface variables on the prediction of parcel-level NTL density
and to provide explanations for particular decisions made by the RF
regression model. If the contribution of one predictor variable was
positive, the value of this feature increased the NTL intensity by the
contribution value. Conversely, a large negative contribution of the
feature implied that the value decreased the NTL intensity by the
contribution value.
4. Results
4.1. Luminosity variations with artificial surface features
To explore the luminosity variations between the NTL intensity of
NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01 images with different artificial surface
features, we measured the area and average NTL radiance of each LULC
type from the NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01 data (Fig. 5(a) and (b)).
Cropland and urban area covered 3729 and 1365 km2, accounting for
56.35% and 20.63% of the total land area, respectively, followed by
rural area, water body, woodland, grassland, and unused land (14.90,
6.21, 1.55, 0.35, and 0.01% of the total area, respectively).
Fig. 5. (a) Area of different land-use/land-cover (LULC) types and (b) average radiance value of each LULC type using NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01 data.
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Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinformation 85 (2020) 101989
The average NTL radiance value with different land-use types by
Luojia 1-01 and NPP-VIIRS is shown in Fig. 5(b). Compared to the
average NTL radiance values of Luojia 1-01 and NPP-VIIRS, the NTL
radiance trend with different land-use types was similar in both Luojia
1-01 and NPP-VIIRS; the highest average Luojia 1-01 NTL radiance
(63.87) was located in the urban area, followed by rural area (21.13),
grassland (8.17), cropland (6.96), woodland (6.23), water body (2.38),
and unused land (0.06). The NTL radiance of Luojia 1-01 in the urban
area was therefore almost three times that of the rural area. The
average NPP-VIIRS NTL radiance of the urban area was 36.64, and
those of rural land, grassland, cropland, woodland, water body, and
unused land were 19.64, 12.35, 9.56, 8.53, 3.71, and 2.46, respectively.
The average NPP-VIIRS NTL radiance of the urban area was 1.87 times
that of the rural area.
4.2. RF regression model fitting
Parcel-level NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01 NTL intensity data were
respectively used to build RF regression models with artificial surface
variables (29 variables from LULC and POIs). The variable selection
results show that the optimal RF regression models were built with 17
variables, which contained four LULC variables (urban area, rural area,
water body, and cropland) and 13 POI variables (auto service, bank,
commercial building, enterprise, entertainment, factory, government
agency, hotel, media, transportation, residential community, restau-
rant, and retail). The oob score of the optimal RF regression models was
0.62 using Luojia 1-01 data and 0.76 using NPP-VIIRS data. The best
parameters of the RF regression models are shown in Table 2.
Selected variables ordered by the Gini importance are shown in
Table 3. Whether in the NPP-VIIRS or Luojia 1-01 RF regression model,
the most influential variable was urban area (Table 3), with values of
up to 0.606 in the NPP-VIIRS RF regression model and 0.577 in that of
Luojia 1-01. Therefore, if urban area did not participate in model
training, the accuracy of the respective models would be reduced by
60.6% or 57.7%. In the NPP-VIIRS RF regression model, rural area was
the second most important variable (0.086), followed by cropland,
water body, transportation, enterprise, and hotel. Enterprise was the
second most important variable in the Luojia 1-01 RF regression model
(0.089). In this model, the Gini importance of commercial building,
rural area, and bank was higher than 0.030, slightly larger than those of
other variables except for urban area and enterprise.
4.3. Feature contributions for NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01
Figs. 6 and 7 show the feature contributions of LULC and typical POI
variable features in the NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01 RF regression
C. Wang, et al. Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinformation 85 (2020) 101989

Table 2 Notably, the contribution did not increase significantly when the
Optimal parameters of the random forest regression models. cropland area increased in the Luojia 1-01 RF regression model.
ID Parameter Range Optimal value Optimal value Feature contributions of the four typical variables related to POIs
(Luojia 1-01) (NPP-VIIRS) are shown in Fig. 7. The feature contribution of enterprise ranged from
0 to 0.01 in the NPP-VIIRS RF regression model (Fig. 7(a)), and this
1 Number of 10–500 120 220
variable made a positive contribution to the parcel-level NTL density.
estimators
2 Max features 1–100 14 10
Compared with the NPP-VIIRS RF regression model, the contribution of
3 Max depth 1–100 12 11 enterprise was higher and much more sensitive in the Luojia 1-01 RF
4 Min split samples 1–100 2 2 regression model (Fig. 7(a)). A similar trend also existed in the feature
5 Min leaf samples 1–100 1 1 contributions of transportation, residential community, and bank
6 oob score Whether to use out- Use out-of-bag Use out-of-bag
(Fig. 7(b)–(d)). The contributions of them were more sensitive in the
of-bag samples samples samples
Luojia 1-01 RF regression model than that in the NPP-VIIRS RF re-
gression model.
Table 3
Gini importance of each variable (*: from points-of-interest, and **: from land- 5. Discussion
use/land-cover) for NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01.
5.1. Advantages and disadvantages of Luojia 1-01
ID Variable NPP-VIIRS Luojia 1-01

1 Urban area** 0.606 0.577 Over the past 20 years, DMSP-OLS and NPP-VIIRS NTL images have
2 Rural area** 0.086 0.035 proven to be useful proxy measures for analyzing socioeconomic factors
3 Cropland** 0.079 0.028
(Chen et al., 2015; Forbes, 2013; Ma et al., 2012; Shi et al., 2016). The
4 Water body** 0.049 0.025
5 Transportation* 0.032 0.024 coarse spatial resolution of these NTL images often meant that socio-
6 Enterprise* 0.027 0.089 economic estimation could only be done at larger scales, such as na-
7 Hotel* 0.02 0.013 tional or global scales. Recently, finer resolution NTL images, such as
8 Government agency* 0.02 0.019 JL1-3B (Zheng et al., 2018) and EROS-B (Levin et al., 2014), have been
9 Residential community* 0.017 0.021
10 Entertainment* 0.013 0.015
used to detect details of lighting objects and nightscape patterns.
11 Auto service* 0.011 0.015 However, JL1-3B and EROS-B images are not freely accessible (Levin
12 Bank* 0.008 0.032 et al., 2014; Zheng et al., 2018) and lack continuous time series data for
13 Retail* 0.008 0.025 monitoring changes in the spatial pattern of artificial nighttime light.
14 Media* 0.008 0.019
Luojia 1-01 fills the gap of mesoscale NTL satellites and provides finer
15 Restaurant* 0.007 0.017
16 Commercial building * 0.006 0.036 resolution images at ∼130 m.
17 Factory* 0.005 0.011 We linked parcel-level artificial surface features to Luojia 1-01 NTL
imagery to reveal the human activities that can explain the NTL var-
iations at a finer scale using NPP-VIIRS data as a comparison. Our re-
models, respectively, where all the contribution and variable values sults show that there are notable differences in the average NTL ra-
were normalized to ensure that the feature contributions of NPP-VIIRS diance of each land-use type when comparing Luojia 1-01 and NPP-
and Luojia 1-01 were comparable. Different feature contributions of the VIIRS data. The Luojia 1-01 NTL satellite can capture a higher dynamic
NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01 RF regression models revealed variations in range, and the luminosity differences across different land-use types are
the parcel-level NTL contribution from LULC and POI variables. The more significant than that of NPP-VIIRS data. Ma (2018) concluded that
contribution of other selected POI features (e.g., retail, restaurant, and urban land has a conspicuously higher NPP-VIIRS NTL than that of
bank) are shown in Fig. S1. other land-use types. Moreover, the notable differences in the NPP-
Feature contributions of the four variables related to LULC are VIIRS NTL between urban land and other types of land surface can
shown in Fig. 6. Urban area was generally an essential variable, with spatially identify most urban pixels with relatively high radiance va-
the highest contribution to the parcel-level NTL density. The feature lues. In this study, the average radiance value of urban area using
contribution of urban area ranged from 0 to 0.3 in the NPP-VIIRS RF Luojia 1-01 data was three times higher than that of other land-use
regression model, whereas it was much higher in the Luojia 1-01 RF types, indicating the higher potential of using Luojia 1-01 NTL imagery
regression model (0–0.4) (Fig. 6(a)). Increases in the feature contribu- to distinguish urban area than NPP-VIIRS data.
tion of urban area were linked to the increasing contribution of NTL The comparison between the artificial surface feature contributions
density at the parcel level, but the contribution degree differed between in the RF regression models of NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01 revealed that
NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01. There was a noticeable difference in urban urban area was the strongest feature influencing NTL intensity. There
area and its contribution to the NTL density between the NPP-VIIRS and was a large difference in the contribution of urban area to NTL intensity
Luojia 1-01 RF regression models. The contribution was 0.4 and 0.3 in when it was 0.3, and the demarcation was not so significant in the NPP-
the Luojia 1-01 and NPP-VIIRS RF regression models, respectively, VIIRS RF regression model, implying that Luojia 1-01 could detect more
when the urban area exceeded 0.3, whereas it was lower than 0.2 when details of the urban area contribution to artificial NTL intensity. Our
the urban area was below 0.3. findings are in agreement with those of Jiang et al. (2018), who con-
The feature contribution of rural land ranged from 0 to 0.06 in the cluded that Luojia 1-01 detected a higher dynamic range and captured
NPP-VIIRS RF regression model, whereas it was lower in the Luojia 1-01 the finer spatial details of artificial light in different land-use types.
RF regression model (Fig. 6(b)). In the NPP-VIIRS RF regression model, Furthermore, Luojia 1-01 images had fewer “blooming” phenomena
water body made a positive contribution across the study area compared with NPP-VIIRS data, especially in cropland, water body, and
(Fig. 6(c)), implying that this higher contribution was linked to higher rural area. Previous studies showed that NPP-VIIRS data improved
NTL density, except for several parcels with a weak negative con- spatial resolution and reduced blooming compared with DMSP-OLS
tribution. However, in the Luojia 1-01 RF regression model, the con- composites (Bennett and Smith, 2017). Similarly, we found that Luojia
tribution of water body did not significantly increase when the area of 1-01 not only had a higher spatial resolution but also fewer “blooming”
water body increased (Fig. 6(c)). The feature contribution of cropland phenomena than NPP-VIIRS composites. Comparing the contributions
ranged from -0.01 to 0.025 in the NPP-VIIRS RF regression model and of rural area in the NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01 RF regression models, we
from -0.01 to 0.03 in the Luojia 1-01 RF regression model (Fig. 6(d)). found that the majority of rural areas contributed 0–0.04 and 0–0.02 to

7
C. Wang, et al.
Fig. 6. Feature contributions of land-use/land-cover types for the random forest regression models using NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01 data.
the parcel-level NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01 NTL intensity, respectively
(Fig. 6(b)). The results further showed that rural area contributed less
NPP-VIIRS NTL intensity than Luojia 1-01 NTL intensity did in some
parcels, implying that the “blooming” phenomenon is especially sig-
nificant for NPP-VIIRS. Similar trends were seen in the contributions of
water body and cropland. Fig. 8 shows three typical regions with few
human activities and low NTL intensity, namely rural area (Fig. 8(a)),
water body (Fig. 8(b)), and cropland (Fig. 8(c)), to compare the ra-
diance values of NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01, which corroborated the
findings of the RF regression models. For instance, the radiance values
of NPP-VIIRS (Fig. 8(b–i)) in the Huangpu River all exceeded 0,
whereas those of Luojia 1-01 (Fig. 8(b–ii)) in some river areas were 0,
especially in the center of the Huangpu River. Our findings confirm that
Luojia 1-01 had fewer “blooming” phenomena than NPP-VIIRS, which
provides useful in future studies.
The contribution of enterprise to the NTL intensity differs between
the Luojia 1-01 and NPP-VIIRS RF regression models (Fig. 7(a)). En-
terprise in most parcels contributed more NTL intensity in the Luojia 1-
01 than in the NPP-VIIRS RF regression model, which was especially
pronounced when the enterprise was larger than 0.05. This difference
may be due to the different overpass times between the two satellites.
The satellite overpass time of Luojia 1-01 in Shanghai was 10:01 PM,
three hours earlier than that of NPP-VIIRS. Zhang et al. (2019) used
smartcard data generated by automatic fare collection systems to in-
vestigate the temporal pattern of activities in urban areas and found a
substantial amount of overtime working activities in Shanghai. These
activities started between 9:00 AM and 9:30 AM and ended at ap-
proximately 10:00 PM, when workers had to leave to be on time for the
metro. Therefore, enterprise contributed more NTL to Luojia 1-01
images, because human activities are frequent during its overpass time.
8
Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinformation 85 (2020) 101989
Transportation, residential community, and bank POIs had the same
trend in their feature contribution to NTL intensity in the two RF re-
gression models.
Nevertheless, some issues remain when Luojia 1-01 data are used.
First, these data contain slight geo-referencing errors, which cause
mismatches with other remote sensing data and consequently affect
future research that requires a high level of geometric integrity. Second,
some Luojia 1-01 images are affected by clouds and moonlight, and the
unavailable data can thus not be used directly. Third, current Luojia 1-
01 imagery comprises single images, which is an obstacle to applica-
tions over large areas. Synthetic Luojia 1-01 NTL data in China have
been published by Wuhan University (http://www.hbeos.org.cn/xwzx/
1/2019-01-21/447.html, accessed June 2019), enabling socioeconomic
applications at large and fine scales. However, the data comprise single
images and cannot be analyzed in long time series.
5.2. Future applications
Based on the above analysis, Luojia 1-01 data are superior to other
NTL data in the following aspects. First, it can better distinguish lu-
minosity variations between urban area and other land-use types
compared with NPP-VIIRS NTL imagery. Shi et al. (2014a) found that
NPP-VIIRS data have high spatial accuracies for built-up urban area
extraction due to its high spatial resolution and wide radiometric de-
tection range. Compared with NPP-VIIRS data, our findings show that
the average radiance of Luojia 1-01 data was much higher in urban
areas than that in any other land-use types, and this difference was
significantly higher than that in NPP-VIIRS data. Moreover, since Luojia
1-01 data not only had a higher spatial resolution but also fewer
“blooming” phenomena than NPP-VIIRS composites in cropland, water
C. Wang, et al.
Fig. 7. Feature contributions of four typical POIs (enterprise, transportation, residential community and bank) for the random forest regression models using NPP-
VIIRS and Luojia 1-01 data.
body, and rural area, it has a superior capacity in detecting urban ex-
tent. Ou et al. (2019) also found that Luojia 1-01 data could produce a
more precise map of the spatial extent of impervious surfaces, which is
in agreement with our findings. Further research should take full ad-
vantage of Luojia 1-01 NTL data as a powerful tool for urban built-up
area extraction at national or regional scales.
Second, Luojia 1-01 NTL imagery enables the investigation of de-
mographic and socioeconomic dynamics at a finer scale, such as po-
pulation estimation (Stevens et al., 2015) and gross domestic product
density (Levin and Zhang, 2017) according to the feature contribution
of POIs to Luojia 1-01 and NPP-VIIRS. In particular, Luojia 1-01 de-
tected detailed artificial surface features. Fig. 7 shows that the con-
tribution of typical POIs to Luojia 1-01 NTL density was more sensitive
and accurate than that in the NPP-VIIRS RF regression model. With an
increased POI density, the contribution of each POI (enterprise, trans-
portation, residential community, and bank) changed significantly in
the Luojia 1-01 RF regression model compared to that in the NPP-VIIRS
RF regression model. For example, the enterprise POI density has a
stronger impact on Luojia 1-01 NTL intensity than other POIs, and a
deeper insight into this relationship could aid in the analysis of gross
domestic product variation.
Although this study mainly focused on the relationship between
NTL intensity and artificial surface features, other physical factors
could also affect NTL intensity, such as snow cover and vegetation.
Levin and Zhang (2017) found that vegetation and snow cover were
correlated with cities' brightness at the global level since vegetation
cover can absorb and block nighttime lights, and snow cover can en-
hance surface reflectance. These factors were not considered in this
study, because human activities may have a greater impact on Shang-
hai's urban development than these physical factors. As such, cities with
9
Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinformation 85 (2020) 101989
less luminosity could be more influenced by these physical factors due
to the low contribution of human activities. Hence, more attention
should be paid to these cities when analyzing the relationship between
Luojia 1-01 NTL and physical factors.
Finally, compared with NPP-VIIRS data, the limitations of Luojia 1-
01 data could be improved in future applications. The geometric cor-
rection method for Luojia 1-01 is essential to reducing geo-referencing
errors (Jiang et al., 2018). An efficient image mosaic method for gen-
erating a regional or global map of fine-scale NTL intensity data com-
bining Luojia 1-01 images is needed, which can promote the generation
of fine-scale socioeconomic maps. Furthermore, the spatial coverage of
DMSP-OLS or NPP-VIIRS is global from 75 °N to 65 °S, but Luojia 1-01
NTL data currently only cover parts of the globe. The absence of global
Luojia 1-01 data makes global scale analyses difficult. It is necessary to
generate global Luojia 1-01 images in the future. Also, analyzing NTL
variation and the contribution of artificial surface features is important
for real-time dynamic monitoring. However, the humid subtropical
climate and seasonality of human activity and vegetation in Shanghai
could lead to errors in the analysis of NPP-VIIRS NTL dynamics (Chen
et al., 2019). Therefore, in the future, seasonal changes in Luojia 1-01
NTL intensity should be considered and studied when analyzing its
dynamics and the phenology causing the fluctuations in Luojia 1-01
NTL intensity.
6. Conclusions
Luojia 1-01 is a new generation NTL satellite with finer spatial re-
solution and freely accessible data, and its NTL imagery shows a great
potential for studying urban issues. Our study represents the first efforts
to use Luojia 1-01 imagery to investigate the relationship between NTL
C. Wang, et al. Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinformation 85 (2020) 101989

Fig. 8. Comparison of (i) NPP-VIIRS data and (ii) Luojia 1-01 data in three typical samples: (a) rural land, (b) water body, and (c) cropland.

intensity and artificial surface features (LULC and POIs data) at the adopted to convert DN to radiance for comparison with NPP-VIIRS
parcel level. Geometric correction was performed on Luojia 1-01 ima- data. Luminosity variations with different LULC types for both Luojia 1-
gery to reduce geo-referencing errors. Radiometric calibration was 01 and NPP-VIIRS NTL data were explored to compare their

10
C. Wang, et al.
relationships. Luojia 1-01 and NPP-VIIRS RF regression models were
used to analyze the feature contribution of artificial surface features to
NTL intensity. Following a variable selection method, seventeen vari-
ables extracted from LULC and POIs data had the best predictive ability
for the Luojia 1-01 and NPP-VIIRS RF regression models. These vari-
ables showed higher accuracy to explain the NTL intensity in the parcel
level variables with a good oob score of 0.62 and 0.76, respectively.
Luojia 1-01 detected a higher dynamic range across different land-
use types than NPP-VIIRS and had a higher potential for distinguishing
urban area from other LULC types. The most influential variable was
urban area in both the NPP-VIIRS and Luojia 1-01 RF regression
models. However, the Gini importance of some POI variables, such as
enterprise, commercial building, and bank, were more influential in the
Luojia 1-01 than in the NPP-VIIRS RF regression model. Artificial sur-
face features (extracted from LULC and POIs data) explained the spatial
variations of NTL intensity and provided more detailed explanations of
Luojia 1-01 NTL intensity. Moreover, Luojia 1-01 had fewer “blooming”
phenomena than NPP-VIIRS and showed a greater potential for ex-
tracting urban areas when analyzing the feature contributions of LULC
to NTL intensity. According to the feature contribution of selected POIs,
Luojia 1-01 appears to be more suitable for estimating socioeconomic
activities than NPP-VIIRS, since human activities are frequent during
the overpass time of Luojia 1-01. As Luojia 1-01 imagery has a slight
geo-referencing error and does not have global coverage, future studies
should focus on improving the image quality and synthesizing global
images. These conclusions can help researchers in understanding the
relationship between artificial surface features and Luojia 1-01 NTL
imagery. In future research, Luojia 1-01 data can incorporate other fine-
scale socioeconomic attributes to attain more comprehensive informa-
tion on human activities.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (grant nos. 41871331 and 41801343), the ECNU
Academic Innovation Promotion Program for Excellent Doctoral
Students (grant no. YBNLTS2019-001), the Open Research Fund of
State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping
and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University (grant no. 18T02), and the
Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission
(grant no. 15ZZ026).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in the
online version, at doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2019.101989.
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