Intercalibration between DMSP/OLS and VIIRS night-time light images to evaluate city light dynamics of Syria’s major human settlement during Syrian Civil War

ABSTRACTMonthly composites of night-time light acquired from the Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) had been used to evaluate socio-economic dynamics and human rights during the Syrian Civil War, which started in March 2011. However, DMSP/OLS monthly composites are not available subsequent to February 2014, and the only available night-time light composites for that period were acquired from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (Suomi NPP/VIIRS). This article proposes an intercalibration model to simulate DMSP/OLS composites from the VIIRS day-and-night band (DNB) composites, by using a power function for radiometric degradation and a Gaussian low pass filter for spatial degradation. The DMSP/OLS data and the simulated DMSP/OLS data were combined to estimate the city light dynamics in Syria’s major human settlement between March 2011 and January 2017. Our analysis shows that Syria’s major human settlement...