• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.458-471
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• 2019

DMSP-OLS nighttime satellite imagery could be used to derive the sum of lights (SOL) and built-up area, and the two indices have been widely employed to make the estimation of socio-economic variables and the dynamics of urban developments. Considering it, this research investigated the spatiotemporal patterns of economic growth and urbanized area in Jilin Province, China, using DMSP-OLS data for a time span between 1992 and 2012. This study found the SOLs of both the province and most cities to tend to grow during the period. While SOL-weighted centroids' means moved towards northwestern direction, urban-area centroids' means followed the trend of south-eastern migration. These directional patterns could be associated with the Northeast Revitalization Plan of Chinese governments. Nonetheless, a future study will need to consider SNPP VIIRS DNB imagery in order to overcome temporal limitation of DMSP-OLS data. In addition, it is also necessary to estimate socio-economic indices, e.g., growth regional domestic product, using a regression model developed with correlation relationship between economic statistics ad SOL.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.369-387
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• 2017

This research derived sum of light (SOL) for Liaoning and Dandong, China, from DMSP OLS satellite images acquired at nighttime during 1992 to 2012 and investigated its potential association with economic status. The SOLs of Liaoning were found to be continuously increasing and higher than those of averages for the other provinces across the time period. The temporal pattern of SOLs would be interpreted to well reflect the economic status of this region based on real growth rate and average wage per capita. Nevertheless, the SOLs of Dandong were lower than the average of the other prefecture-level cities, which indicated the economic status of this city in China. Meanwhile, the average annual growth rate of SOLs for Dandong turned out to be increase for 1998~2007, compared with the previous years, and temporal patterns in the trade amount between North Korea and China and the export amount of North Korea to China were similar to those of SOLs in the same time period. The political association between South and North Koreas was improved with 'Sunshine Policy' during 1997~2007. Taking it into account, SOL is expected to be valuable spatial proxy index that could explain the geopolitcal and geoeconomic aspects of Dandong.