Using nighttime lights data to assess the resumption of religious and socioeconomic activities post-COVID-19
Using nighttime lights data to assess the resumption of religious and socioeconomic activities post-COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic greatly impacted socioeconomic life globally. Nighttime-lights (NTLs) data are mainly related to anthropogenic phenomena and thus have the ability to monitor changes in socioeconomic activity. However, the overglow effect is a source of uncertainty and affects the applicability of NTL data for accurately monitoring socioeconomic changes. This research integrates the NTL and fine bare-land-cover data to construct a novel index named the Bare Adjusted NTL Index (BANTLI) to lessen the overglow uncertainty. BANTLI was used to measure the post-pandemic resumption of religious rituals and socioeconomic activity in Makkah and Madinah at different spatial levels. The results demonstrate that BANTLI significantly eliminates the overglow effect. In addition, BANTLI brightness recovered during the post-pandemic periods, but it has remained below the level of the pre-pandemic period. Moreover, not all wards and rings are affected equally: wards and rings that are near the city center experienced the most explicit reduction of BANTLI brightness compared with the suburbs. The Hajj pilgrimage period witnessed a larger decrease in BANTLI brightness than the pandemic period in Makkah. The findings indicate that (i) BANTLI successfully mitigates the overglow effect in the NTL data, and (ii) the cultural context is important to understand the impact of COVID-19.
Makkah, Madinah, Hajj, Umrah, COVID-19, nighttime, VIIRS DNB, BANTLI, methods
Al-Ahmadi, Mohammed
ff5aca26-d409-49ec-8f7b-cb6af18ba92a
Mansour, Shawky
ac8a0201-1b20-43bc-b7fc-3b3c712eb3fd
Dasgupta, Nataraj
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Martin, David
e5c52473-e9f0-4f09-b64c-fa32194b162f
15 February 2023
Al-Ahmadi, Mohammed
ff5aca26-d409-49ec-8f7b-cb6af18ba92a
Mansour, Shawky
ac8a0201-1b20-43bc-b7fc-3b3c712eb3fd
Dasgupta, Nataraj
0e046248-535f-49ca-a366-c8056029fa81
Martin, David
e5c52473-e9f0-4f09-b64c-fa32194b162f
Al-Ahmadi, Mohammed, Mansour, Shawky, Dasgupta, Nataraj and Martin, David
(2023)
Using nighttime lights data to assess the resumption of religious and socioeconomic activities post-COVID-19.
Remote Sensing, 15 (4), [1064].
(doi:10.3390/rs15041064).
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic greatly impacted socioeconomic life globally. Nighttime-lights (NTLs) data are mainly related to anthropogenic phenomena and thus have the ability to monitor changes in socioeconomic activity. However, the overglow effect is a source of uncertainty and affects the applicability of NTL data for accurately monitoring socioeconomic changes. This research integrates the NTL and fine bare-land-cover data to construct a novel index named the Bare Adjusted NTL Index (BANTLI) to lessen the overglow uncertainty. BANTLI was used to measure the post-pandemic resumption of religious rituals and socioeconomic activity in Makkah and Madinah at different spatial levels. The results demonstrate that BANTLI significantly eliminates the overglow effect. In addition, BANTLI brightness recovered during the post-pandemic periods, but it has remained below the level of the pre-pandemic period. Moreover, not all wards and rings are affected equally: wards and rings that are near the city center experienced the most explicit reduction of BANTLI brightness compared with the suburbs. The Hajj pilgrimage period witnessed a larger decrease in BANTLI brightness than the pandemic period in Makkah. The findings indicate that (i) BANTLI successfully mitigates the overglow effect in the NTL data, and (ii) the cultural context is important to understand the impact of COVID-19.
Text
remotesensing-15-01064-v2
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 9 February 2023
Published date: 15 February 2023
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge support from the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST). The authors thank Waleed Aldurgham from the Ministry of Transport and Ahmad Alneami from the National Center for Vegetation Cover Development & Combating Desertification for their help in obtaining information.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the authors.
Keywords:
Makkah, Madinah, Hajj, Umrah, COVID-19, nighttime, VIIRS DNB, BANTLI, methods
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 475489
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/475489
ISSN: 2072-4292
PURE UUID: 8f48ab79-fe8f-405b-aaa2-2f9f33f8b11c
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Date deposited: 20 Mar 2023 17:41
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 02:39
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Contributors
Author:
Mohammed Al-Ahmadi
Author:
Shawky Mansour
Author:
Nataraj Dasgupta
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