Nighttime Light Images Reveal Spatial-Temporal Dynamics of Global Anthropogenic Resources Accumulation above Ground

Urbanization and industrialization represent largely a process of transforming materials from biosphere and lithosphere to anthroposphere. Understanding the patterns of such anthropogenic material stock accumulation is thus a fundamental prerequisite to assess and sustain how humans alter the biophysical movements of resources around Earth. Previous studies on these anthropogenic stocks, however, are often limited to the global and national scales, due to data gaps at higher spatial resolutions. Here, based on a new set of national materials stock data and nighttime light images, we developed a regression model to map the global anthropogenic stocks of three fundamental construction materials (steel, concrete, and aluminum) at a 1 × 1 km level from 1992 to 2008. We revealed an unevenly distributed pattern, with over 40% found in three belts: from England across the Channel to Western Europe; from eastern coast China to South Korea and Japan; and from Great Lakes along eastern coast of United States to Flo...