Impact of air pollution on urbanization:evidence at China’s city level

This paper investigates the effect and transmission mechanism of air pollution on urbanization based on data from China’s 107 cities during 2005–2018.In order to identify the impact of air pollution on China’s urbanization,we utilized night light data to represent the level of urbanization and used temperature inversion as an instrumental variable to mitigate endogeneity within the two-stage least squares framework.The results suggest that air pollution significantly slowed China’s urbanization process with economic growth acting as the transmission mechanism.The heterogeneity analyses revealed that air pollution had a greater negative impact on urbanization in northern regions than that in southern regions,and a greater negative impact in resource-oriented cities than that in non-resource-based cities.We also find that air pollution was to the detriment of urbanization in larger cities,which have more than 3 million residents,while it did not have a significant impact on Type II large cities,which have fewer than 3 million residents.

Assessment of Human Impacts on Vegetation in Built-up Areas in China Based on AVHRR,MODIS and DMSP_OLS Nighttime Light Data,1992–2010

Since the reform and opening-up program started in 1978,the level of urbanization has increased rapidly in China.Rapid urban expansion and restructuring have had significant impacts on the ecological environment especially within built-up areas.In this study,ArcGIS 10,ENVI 4.5,and Visual FoxPro 6.0 were used to analyze the human impacts on vegetation in the built-up areas of 656Chinese cities from 1992 to 2010.Firstly,an existing algorithm was refined to extract the boundaries of the built-up areas based on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System(DMSP_OLS)nighttime light data.This improved algorithm has the advantages of high accuracy and speed.Secondly,a mathematical model(Human impacts(HI))was constructed to measure the impacts of human factors on vegetation during rapid urbanization based on Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer(AVHRR)Normalized Difference Vegetation Index(NDVI)and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS)NDVI.HI values greater than zero indicate relatively beneficial effects while values less than zero indicate proportionally adverse effects.The results were analyzed from four aspects:the size of cities(metropolises,large cities,medium-sized cities,and small cities),large regions(the eastern,central,western,and northeastern China),administrative divisions of China(provinces,autonomous regions,and municipalities)and vegetation zones(humid and semi-humid forest zone,semi-arid steppe zone,and arid desert zone).Finally,we discussed how human factors impacted on vegetation changes in the built-up areas.We found that urban planning policies and developmental stages impacted on vegetation changes in the built-up areas.The negative human impacts followed an inverted′U′shape,first rising and then falling with increase of urban scales.China′s national policies,social and economic development affected vegetation changes in the built-up areas.The findings can provide a scientific basis for municipal planning departments,a decision-making reference for government,and scientific guidance for sustainable development in China.

Quantifying urbanization levels on the Tibetan Plateau with high-resolution nighttime light data

The Tibetan Plateau(TP)is undergoing rapid urbanization.To improve urban sustainability and construct eco-logical security barriers,it is essential to quantify the spatial patterns of urbanization level on the TP,but the existing studies on the topic have been limited by the lack of socioeconomic data.This study aims to quantify the urbanization level on the TP in 2018 with Luojia1-01(LJ1-01)high-resolution nighttime light(NTL)data.Specifically,the compounded night light index is used to quantify spatial patterns of urbanization level at mul-tiple scales.The results showed that the TP had a low overall urbanization level with a large internal difference.The urbanization level in the northeast,southeast and south of the TP was relatively high,forming three hotspots centered in Xining City,Lhasa City and Shangri-La City,while the urbanization level in the central and western regions was relatively low.The analysis of influencing factors,based on the random forest model,showed that transportation and topography were the main factors affecting the TP’s spatial patterns of urbanization level.The comparison analysis with socioeconomic statistics and traditional NTL data showed that LJ1-01 NTL data can be used to more effectively quantify the urbanization level since it is more advantageous for reflecting the spatial extent of urban land and describing the spatial structure of socioeconomic activities within urban areas.These advantages are attributed to the high spatial resolution of the data,appropriate imaging time and unaf-fected by saturation phenomena.Thus,the proposed LJ1-01 NTL-based urbanization level measurement method has the potential for wide applications around the world,especially in less-developed regions lacking statistical data.Using this method,we refined the measurement of the TP’s urbanization level in 2018 for multiple scales including the region,basin,prefecture and county levels,which provides basic information for the further urban sustainability research on the TP.

Spatiotemporal Measurement of Regional Expansion in Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan Metropolitan Area Based on Nighttime Light Data

The research purpose is to accurately reveal the temporal and spatial law of the urban expansion of Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan, one of the seven major urban agglomeration areas in China, and provide decision-making basis for the future urban construction land layout and regional development policy-making. Based on the night lighting data (DMSP/OLS), this paper extracts the boundary of the urban construction land of Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan urban agglomeration from 1993 to 2017, and quantitatively studies the spatial and temporal characteristics of the expansion of the metropolitan area in the past 25 years according to the methods of spatial expansion analysis, center of gravity migration measurement, landscape pattern index, spatial autocorrelation, etc. The results show that: 1) it is scientific and feasible to extract urban agglomeration construction land by the method of auxiliary data comparison for the study of urban expansion;2) the expansion of regional space in Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan metropolitan area shows a trend of “weakening first and strengthening later”. The construction land keeps increasing, and the expansion form gradually changes from extensive type to intensive type;3) the center of gravity of the metropolitan area fluctuated and repeated in part during the past 25 years, but it was always located in the municipal district of Changsha city. The eastern region, mainly Changsha city, was still the core area of urban agglomeration expansion;4) strengthening the territorial space protection and control of ecological green core in the metropolitan area is a key measure for the high-quality development of urban agglomeration.

Separate Dimming Controlling and Data Transmission for an Indoor Visible Light Communication System

Simultaneous dimming controlling and data transmission are usually required in a white LED based indoor visible light communication system.However,the diming controlling of LED normally interferes the data transmission due to the modulation nonlinearity of LED.In order to solve this problem,a scheme by separating the LEDs for the functions of dimming control and data transmission respectively is proposed in this paper.In the scheme,the LEDs used for dimming control function are driven by a dc amplified circuit,and the LEDs for data transmission are driven by a digital modulation circuit respectively.In this way,the modulation distortion to the data signal caused by the modulation nonlinearity can be avoided even if the dimming is at high level dc driven current.The proof-of-concept experiment of a 2.5Mbit/s visible light communication system demonstrates that the dimming controlling and data transmission can be realized simultaneously in a simple way,and the data transmission is not affected by the dimming controlling function.Compared to previous methods,the scheme in this paper is simpler and cost effective,and makes sense when high rate data is transmitted in a visible light communication system.

Mesoproterozoic Nuna Supercontinent and the Geomagnetic Field in Light of Recent Paleomagnetic Data from Diabase Dykes of Finland

The number of good quality paleomagnetic data of the Mesoproterozoic supercontinent Nuna(e.g.Columbia,Hudsonland)has increased in recent years enabling more reliable global continental reconstructions(e.g Hoffman

Profiling Astronomical Objects Using Unsupervised Learning Approach

Attempts to determine characters of astronomical objects have been one of major and vibrant activities in both astronomy and data science fields.Instead of a manual inspection,various automated systems are invented to satisfy the need,including the classification of light curve profiles.A specific Kaggle competition,namely Photometric LSST Astronomical Time-Series Classification Challenge(PLAsTiCC),is launched to gather new ideas of tackling the abovementioned task using the data set collected from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope(LSST)project.Almost all proposed methods fall into the supervised family with a common aim to categorize each object into one of pre-defined types.As this challenge focuses on developing a predictive model that is robust to classifying unseen data,those previous attempts similarly encounter the lack of discriminate features,since distribution of training and actual test datasets are largely different.As a result,well-known classification algorithms prove to be sub-optimal,while more complicated feature extraction techniques may help to slightly boost the predictive performance.Given such a burden,this research is set to explore an unsupervised alternative to the difficult quest,where common classifiers fail to reach the 50%accuracy mark.A clustering technique is exploited to transform the space of training data,from which a more accurate classifier can be built.In addition to a single clustering framework that provides a comparable accuracy to the front runners of supervised learning,a multiple-clustering alternative is also introduced with improved performance.In fact,it is able to yield a higher accuracy rate of 58.32%from 51.36%that is obtained using a simple clustering.For this difficult problem,it is rather good considering for those achieved by well-known models like support vector machine(SVM)with 51.80%and Naive Bayes(NB)with only 2.92%.

Infuence of urbanization on schistosomiasis infection risk in Anhui Province based on sixteen year’s longitudinal surveillance data:a spatio-temporal modelling study

Background Urbanization greatly afects the natural and social environment of human existence and may have a multifactoral impact on parasitic diseases.Schistosomiasis,a common parasitic disease transmitted by the snail Oncomelania hupensis,is mainly found in areas with population aggregations along rivers and lakes where snails live.Previous studies have suggested that factors related to urbanization may infuence the infection risk of schistosomiasis,but this association remains unclear.This study aimed to analyse the efect of urbanization on schistosomiasis infection risk from a spatial and temporal perspective in the endemic areas along the Yangtze River Basin in China.Methods County-level schistosomiasis surveillance data and natural environmental factor data covering the whole Anhui Province were collected.The urbanization level was characterized based on night-time light data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System(DMSP-OLS)and the National Polar-Orbiting Partnership’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite(NPP-VIIRS).The geographically and temporally weighted regression model(GTWR)was used to quantify the infuence of urbanization on schistosomiasis infection risk with the other potential risk factors controlled.The regression coefcient of urbanization was tested for signifcance(α=0.05),and the infuence of urbanization on schistosomiasis infection risk was analysed over time and across space based on signifcant regression coefcients.Variables studied included climate,soil,vegetation,hydrology and topography.Results The mean regression coefcient for urbanization(0.167)is second only to the leached soil area(0.300),which shows that the urbanization is the most important infuence factors for schistosomiasis infection risk besides leached soil area.The other important variables are distance to the nearest water source(0.165),mean minimum temperature(0.130),broadleaf forest area(0.105),amount of precipitation(0.073),surface temperature(0.066),soil bulk density(0.037)and grassland area(0.031).The infuence of urbanization on schistosomiasis infection risk showed a decreasing trend year by year.During the study period,the signifcant coefcient of urbanization level increased from−0.205 to−0.131.Conclusions The infuence of urbanization on schistosomiasis infection has spatio-temporal heterogeneous.The urbanization does reduce the risk of schistosomiasis infection to some extend,but the strength of this infuence decreases with increasing urbanization.Additionally,the efect of urbanization on schistosomiasis infection risk was greater than previous reported natural environmental factors.This study provides scientifc basis for understanding the infuence of urbanization on schistosomiasis,and also provides the feasible research methods for other similar studies to answer the issue about the impact of urbanization on disease risk.

Spatial-temporal characteristics and decoupling effects of China’s carbon footprint based on multi-source data

In 2007,China surpassed the USA to become the largest carbon emitter in the world.China has promised a 60%–65%reduction in carbon emissions per unit GDP by 2030,compared to the baseline of 2005.Therefore,it is important to obtain accurate dynamic information on the spatial and temporal patterns of carbon emissions and carbon footprints to support formulating effective national carbon emission reduction policies.This study attempts to build a carbon emission panel data model that simulates carbon emissions in China from 2000–2013 using nighttime lighting data and carbon emission statistics data.By applying the Exploratory Spatial-Temporal Data Analysis(ESTDA)framework,this study conducted an analysis on the spatial patterns and dynamic spatial-temporal interactions of carbon footprints from 2001–2013.The improved Tapio decoupling model was adopted to investigate the levels of coupling or decoupling between the carbon emission load and economic growth in 336 prefecture-level units.The results show that,firstly,high accuracy was achieved by the model in simulating carbon emissions.Secondly,the total carbon footprints and carbon deficits across China increased with average annual growth rates of 4.82%and 5.72%,respectively.The overall carbon footprints and carbon deficits were larger in the North than that in the South.There were extremely significant spatial autocorrelation features in the carbon footprints of prefecture-level units.Thirdly,the relative lengths of the Local Indicators of Spatial Association(LISA)time paths were longer in the North than that in the South,and they increased from the coastal to the central and western regions.Lastly,the overall decoupling index was mainly a weak decoupling type,but the number of cities with this weak decoupling continued to decrease.The unsustainable development trend of China’s economic growth and carbon emission load will continue for some time.

Modeling the spatiotemporal dynamics of electric power consumption in China' Mainland using saturation-corrected DMSP/OLS nighttime stable light data

Obtaining timely and accurate data on the spatiotemporal dynamics of electric power consumption(EPC)is crucial for the effective utilization of electric power in China.The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Linescan System(DMSP/OLS)nighttime stable light(NSL)data have good potential for estimating EPC effectively at large scales.However,saturated lighted pixels contained within the NSL data limit the accuracy of EPC estimation.We developed a new method to correct the saturated lighted pixels,using the SPOT VEGETATION(SPOT/VGT)10-day synthesis product(S10)normalized differ-ence vegetation index(NDVI)data and then modeled the spatiotemporal dynamics of EPC in China' Mainland from 2000 to 2008.The results demon-strated the reliability of our approach with an average Rvalue of 0.93(P<0.001)and an average relative error of-28.92%.EPC in China' Mainland showed an average annual growth rate of 13.46% during the study period from 1198.23 billion kWh in 2000 to 3290.51 billion kWh in 2008.EPC in China' Mainland also showed clear regional variation.Northern coastal China and eastern coastal China consumed 37.61%of the total EPC in China' Mainland,with only 25.96% of the population and 6.11% of the area.

Spatio-temporal variations and influencing factors of energy-related carbon emissions for Xinjiang cities in China based on time-series nighttime light data

This essay combines the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System(DMSP-OLS)nighttime light data and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite(VIIRS)nighttime light data into a“synthetic DMSP”dataset,from 1992 to 2020,to retrieve the spatio-temporal variations in energy-related carbon emissions in Xinjiang,China.Then,this paper analyzes several influencing factors for spatial differentiation of carbon emissions in Xinjiang with the application of geographical detector technique.Results reveal that(1)total carbon emissions continued to grow,while the growth rate slowed down in the past five years.(2)Large regional differences exist in total carbon emissions across various regions.Total carbon emissions of these regions in descending order are the northern slope of the Tianshan(Mountains)>the southern slope of the Tianshan>the three prefectures in southern Xinjiang>the northern part of Xinjiang.(3)Economic growth,population size,and energy consumption intensity are the most important factors of spatial differentiation of carbon emissions.The interaction between economic growth and population size as well as between economic growth and energy consumption intensity also enhances the explanatory power of carbon emissions’spatial differentiation.This paper aims to help formulate differentiated carbon reduction targets and strategies for cities in different economic development stages and those with different carbon intensities so as to achieve the carbon peak goals in different steps.

Similarities and differences of city-size distributions in three main urban agglomerations of China from 1992 to 2015： A comparative study based on nighttime light data

Comparing the city-size distribution at the urban agglomeration（UA） scale is important for understanding the processes of urban development. However, comparative studies of city-size distribution among China＇s three largest UAs, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei agglomeration（BTHA）, the Yangtze River Delta agglomeration（YRDA）, and the Pearl River Delta agglomeration（PRDA）, remain inadequate due to the limitation of data availability. Therefore, using urban data derived from time-series nighttime light data, the common characteristics and distinctive features of city-size distribution among the three UAs from 1992 to 2015 were compared by the Pareto regression and the rank clock method. We identified two common features. First, the city-size distribution became more even. The Pareto exponents increased by 0.17, 0.12, and 0.01 in the YRDA, BTHA, and PRDA, respectively. Second, the average ranks of small cities ascended, being 0.55, 0.08 and 0.04 in the three UAs, respectively. However, the average ranks of large and medium cities in the three UAs experienced different trajectories, which are closely related to the similarities and differences in the driving forces for the development of UAs. Place-based measures are encouraged to promote a coordinated development among cities of differing sizes in the three UAs.

Carbon dioxide(CO_(2))emissions from the service industry,traffic,and secondary industry as revealed by the remotely sensed nighttime light data

Exploring carbon dioxide(CO2)emissions from human activities is essential for urban energy conservation and resource management.Remotely sensed nighttime lights from the Suomi NPP-VIIRS provide spatial consistency in and a low-cost way of revealing CO2 emissions.Although many researches have documented the feasibility of the Suomi NPP-VIIRS data for assessing CO2 emissions,few have systematically revealed the ability of nighttime lights for evaluating CO2 emissions from different industries,such as service industry CO2 emissions(SC),traffic CO2 emissions(TC),and secondary industry CO2 emissions(IC).Here,China was selected as the experimental subject,and we comprehensively explored the relationships between the nighttime lights and SC,TC,and IC,and investigated the factors mediating these relationships.We found that without considering other factors,the nighttime lights only revealed up to 51.2%of TC,followed by 41.7%of IC and 22.7%of SC.When controlling for city characteristic variables,the models showed that there were positive correlations between the Suomi NPP-VIIRS data and SC,IC,and TC,and that nighttime lights have an Inverted-U relationship with SC.The Suomi NPP-VIIRS data are more suitable for revealing SC,TC,and IC in medium-sized and large-sized cities than in small-sized cities and megacities.

Spatio-temporal correlation between human activity intensity and land surface temperature on the north slope of Tianshan Mountains

Research on the spatio-temporal correlation between the intensity of human activities and the temperature of earth surfaces is of great significance in many aspects,including fully understanding the causes and mechanisms of climate change,actively adapting to climate change,pursuing rational development,and protecting the ecological environment.Taking the north slope of Tianshan Mountains,located in the arid area of northwestern China and extremely sensitive to climate change,as the research area,this study retrieves the surface temperature of the mountain based on MODIS data,while characterizing the intensity of human activities thereby data on the night light,population distribution and land use.The evolution characteristics of human activity intensity and surface temperature in the study area from 2000 to 2018 were analyzed,and the spatio-temporal correlation between them was further explored.It is found that:(1)The average human activity intensity(0.11)in the research area has kept relatively low since this century,and the overall trend has been slowly rising in a stepwise manner(0.0024·a-1);in addition,the increase in human activity intensity has lagged behind that in construction land and population by 1-2 years.(2)The annual average surface temperature in the area is 7.18℃with a pronounced growth.The rate of change(0.02℃·a-1)is about 2.33 times that of the world.The striking boost in spring(0.068℃·a-1)contributes the most to the overall warming trend.Spatially,the surface temperature is low in the south and high in the north,due to the prominent influence of the underlying surface characteristics,such as elevation and vegetation coverage.(3)The intensity of human activity and the surface temperature are remarkably positively correlated in the human activity areas there,showing a strong distribution in the east section and a weak one in the west section.The expression of its spatial differentiation and correlation is comprehensively affected by such factors as scopes of human activities,manifestations,and land-use changes.Vegetation-related human interventions,such as agriculture and forestry planting,urban greening,and afforestation,can effectively reduce the surface warming caused by human activities.This study not only puts forward new ideas to finely portray the intensity of human activities but also offers a scientific reference for regional human-land coordination and overall development.

Spatiotemporal measurement of urbanization levels based on multiscale units: A case study of the Bohai Rim Region in China

Urbanization is a complex process reflecting the growth, formation and develop- ment of cities and their systems. Measuring regional urbanization levels within a long time series may ensure healthy and harmonious urban development. Based on DMSP/OLS night- time light data, a human-computer interactive boundary correction method was used to ob- tain information about built-up urban areas in the Bohai Rim region from 1992 to 2012. Con- sequently, a method was proposed and applied to measure urbanization levels using four measurement scale units： administrative division, land-sea location, terrain feature, and geomorphological types. Our conclusions are： 1） The extraction results based on DMSP/OLS nighttime light data showed substantial agreement with those obtained using Landsat TM/ETM＋ data on spatial patterns. The overall accuracy was 97.70% on average, with an average Kappa of 0.79, indicating that the results extracted from DMSP/OLS nighttime light data were reliable and could well reflect the actual status of built-up urban areas. 2） Bohai Rim＇s urbanization level has increased significantly, demonstrating a high annual growth rate from 1998 to 2006. Areas with high urbanization levels have relocated evidently from capital to coastal cities. 3） The distribution of built-up urban areas showed a certain degree of zonal variation. The urbanization level was negatively correlated with relief amplitude and altitude. A high level of urbanization was found in low altitude platforms and low altitude plains, with a gradual narrowing of the gap between these two geomorphological types. 4） The measure- ment method presented in this study is fast, convenient, and incorporates multiple perspec- tives. It would offer various directions for urban construction and provide reference values for measuring national-level urbanization.