Department of Forest Resources Management, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
PLoS One. 2022 Sep 13;17(9):e0273740. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273740. eCollection 2022.
Nighttime lights (NTL) are the procurement of remotely sensed artificial illumination from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) satellite. NTL provides a unique perspective on anthropogenic activity by characterizing spatial and temporal patterns related to economic trends and human development. In this study, we assess the ability of NTL to characterize trends associated with industrial lumber production in British Columbia, Canada. We establish the presence of a logarithmic relationship between NTL and lumber mill production capacity (R2 = 0.69-0.82). The ability of NTL to temporally identify mill closures is then demonstrated by differentiating pairs of active and closed mills. We also identify Granger causality and co-integration between NTL and monthly lumber production, highlighting the predictive capability of NTL to forecast production. We then utilize this relationship to build linear regression models that utilize NTL data to estimate monthly (R2 = 0.33), quarterly (R2 = 0.58), and annual (R2 = 0.90) lumber production without reported data.
夜间灯光（NTL）是通过可见红外成像辐射计套件（VIIRS）卫星获取的遥感人工照明。NTL 通过描述与经济趋势和人类发展相关的时空模式，为人类活动提供了独特的视角。在这项研究中，我们评估了 NTL 描述加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省工业木材生产相关趋势的能力。我们建立了 NTL 与木材厂生产能力之间的对数关系（R2 = 0.69-0.82）。然后，通过区分活跃和关闭的工厂，证明了 NTL 能够在时间上识别工厂关闭的能力。我们还确定了 NTL 和月度木材产量之间的格兰杰因果关系和协整，突出了 NTL 预测产量的能力。然后，我们利用这种关系建立线性回归模型，利用 NTL 数据来估计月度（R2 = 0.33）、季度（R2 = 0.58）和年度（R2 = 0.90）木材产量，而无需报告数据。
