A New Way to Illuminate Inequality Around the World
Want to know where the poor live? Look at where the light isn’t
- By Joseph Stromberg
- Smithsonian magazine, March 2013, Subscribe
Satellite photos of Earth’s artificial lights at night form a luminescent landscape. But researcher Chris Elvidge of NOAA and colleagues from the University of Colorado and the University of Denver realized that they could also illuminate something much darker: the magnitude of human poverty. By comparing the amount of light in a particular area and its known population, they realized that they could infer the percentage of people who are able to afford electricity and the level of government spending on infrastructure development. This allowed them to extrapolate levels of human development—a measure of well-being that includes such factors as income, life expectancy and literacy.
Their Night Light Development Index (NLDI) uses a composite of cloudless night images taken by Air Force satellites. They found that the NLDI (below) measured human development with uncanny accuracy. The results closely correlated with conventional indices and in some cases even surpassed them. “The NLDI helps us get at the spatial patterns that you can’t see with traditional economic indices,” Elvidge says. “For instance, most nations report their GDP at the country or province level, but the NLDI can reveal subregional patterns, down to the one-kilometer scale.” The index also provides information on some countries, mostly in Northern Africa and the Middle East, for which reliable economic data are simply unavailable.
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Comments (7)
Just goes to show scientists do not live in the real world. The Sahara desert is not able to support live as we know it. As are many other places on our planet. Did any one notice lights from the South Pole or North pole. But both regions are full of scientists coming up with equally ridiculous theories.
Posted by Shugs on March 4,2013 | 06:50 PM
@b marshall You got all of that from a single new metric? Wow... *nodding & smiling & backing slowly*
Posted by rdiac on March 4,2013 | 10:04 AM
When will humanity step into the light? Clearly not any time soon.
Posted by Anonymous on March 3,2013 | 02:04 AM
You sir, are a simple minded idiot. Find something more efficient to do with your time.
Posted by b peters on March 3,2013 | 12:46 AM
He frequently flew combat missions over New Guinea, for which he received the Silver Star.
Posted by eyu.hangseng on March 3,2013 | 12:13 AM
Uhm, why is there light / High Level Of Development on top on the map in Russia's Siberia near the Arctic Ocean?
Posted by Mike-In-VA on March 1,2013 | 03:52 PM
Classic Bolshevik infection and propaganda. You could have named this story, "Want to know where people collaborate and promote civilization? Look at the lights." But no, everything has to be contrived into class deprivations supporting Marxist class warfare, with culprits of capitalist corporations and WASP dominance & oppression. This is the suckling right-brain rampaging. Stop the propaganda and your obsession for all-things-revisionism. You are to to janitors of museum artifacts and exhibits, protecting them from humidity, UV rays and vandalism. We already have enough leftist propaganda in the universities and colleges. But no, you aren't satisfied with that. Everyone wants to be a five and dime activist.
Posted by b marshall on February 28,2013 | 01:36 PM