Monitoring Turkey's Nighttime Light and Environmental Change

Abstract Night lighting, population growth and climate change are major concerns for Turkey. The intensity of night lights in Turkey has increased significantly in recent years and this increase is closely linked to the rapid growth of the population and the expansion of urban areas. It has been observed that there are more night lights in areas with higher population density. The use of night lighting is directly linked to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. This is a major contributor to global climate change. The increase in night lighting in Turkey may aggravate the effects of climate change. In this study, NTL and average DNB for 2013-2021 from NOAA/V21 satellite, average DNB radiance values for 2013-2023 from NOAA/CMCFG satellite, BRDF corrected DNB NTL data for 2013-2023 from NOAA/VNP46A2 satellite were obtained. Night temperature values were extracted from NOAA and MODIS images and their relationship with night light data was analysed. A moderate relationship between NTL and night LST was observed (R:0.32, p-value <0.05). Population and greenhouse gas emission data were obtained from the TurkStat data portal. A high correlation was observed between NTL and greenhouse gases (R>0.8, p-value <0.05). Population density is one of the most important determinants of night light intensity. According to the results, night light intensity in Turkey is significantly correlated with population and greenhouse gas emissions. These results suggest that night light data can be used to develop sustainability and environmental policies. Controlling population growth and energy consumption is an important step in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.