Characterizing land use with night-time imagery: the war in Eastern Ukraine (2012-2016)

The ongoing military conflict in Eastern Ukraine has resulted in significant land use changes as well as economic shifts particularly in agricultural and industrial activities. The day/night band detectors on-board the Suomi-NPP Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite provides an opportunity to assess socio-economic impacts of human conflicts based on physical radiometric measurements. In this study, we show a near 50% decrease in night-time light activity in Donetsk and Luhansk (Donbass Region) from 2012 to 2016. Furthermore, by separating night-time light losses between areas inside official city boundaries and those outside, we illustrate the sensitivity to residential land-use types. A 43.5% of night-time light loss inside cities was attributed to residential areas and 17.5% registered outside of cities. Additionally, this separation showed considerable differences for night-time light losses attributed to industrial land-use types with higher losses occurring in regions outside of cities (36.5%) than regions inside cities (24%). The separation of night-time light losses inside and outside cities reveal considerable discrepancies in night-time light losses showing that considerable activity occurs outside of traditionally targeted urban activities. The results demonstrate night-time light losses are sensitive to proximity to civilian-residential populations, and highlight discrepancies between urban cores and their attached peripheries.