Global mapping of urban built-up areas of year 2014 by combining MODIS multispectral data with VIIRS nighttime light data

An improved methodology for the extraction and mapping of urban built-up areas at a global scale is presented in this study.The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS)-based multispectral data were combined with the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite(VIIRS)-based nighttime light(NTL)data for robust extraction and mapping of urban built-up areas.The MODIS-based newly proposed Urban Built-up Index(UBI)was combined with NTL data,and the resulting Enhanced UBI(EUBI)was used as a single master image for global extraction of urban built-up areas.Due to higher variation of the EUBI with respect to geographical regions,a region-specific threshold approach was used to extract urban built-up areas.This research provided 500-m-resolution global urban built-up map of year 2014.The resulted map was compared with three existing moderate-resolution global maps and one high-resolution map in the United States.The comparative analysis demonstrated finer details of the urban built-up cover estimated by the resultant map.