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Journal of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences ›› 2022, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (4): 490-501.DOI: 10.7523/j.ucas.2021.0010

• Research Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Hot spots tracking of nighttime light data application in research of urbanization and its resource and environmental effects

ZHANG Xiaoping1, GAO Shanshan1, CHEN Mingxing1,2, ZHAO Yanyan1   

  1. 1. College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;
    2. Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
  • Received:2020-11-09 Revised:2021-02-05 Online:2022-07-15

Abstract: Being closely related to human socioeconomic activity and its footprints, nighttime light (NTL) data shows great advantages in urbanization and socioeconomic development research, especially in densely populated cities. Based on CiteSpace software and the core databases of CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) and WOS (Web of Science), this paper tracked the hot spots of NTL data in the study of urbanization and related resource consumption and environmental effects from 2000 to 2019. The main results are as follows. 1) Urbanization was the main focus of the application of NTL data, but the researches on the resource consumption and environmental effects caused by urbanization were slightly weak, which was more obvious in Chinese literature. 2) Researches of urban expansion and urban form evolution focused on process of land expansion based on different features of NTL datasets, while in researches of population, socioeconomic development, electricity consumption and carbon emissions, NTL data usually played the role as a supporting tool to explore spatiotemporal characteristics and mechanism. 3) In regards of air pollution and urban heat island induced by urbanization, NTL datasets were usually used to represent factors related to human activities and their impacts. 4) Urbanization process and its impacts on resource and environment are complex, the improved spatial resolution and integrated multi-source data, along with new methods as machine learning, will make the urbanization related research be more precise and scientific. Finally, the paper summarizes the possible new directions of the application of NTL data in urban geography.

Key words: nighttime light data, bibliometric analysis, resource and environmental effects, urbanization

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