Can we Rely on VIIRS Nightlights to Estimate the Short-Term Impacts of Natural Disasters?

Abstract

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Constructing Damage Indices Based on Publicly Available Spatial Data: Exemplified by Earthquakes and Volcanic Eruptions in Indonesia

“…The VIIRS data are considered superior (higher-resolution images, on-board calibration, better sensors, and non-saturated measurements), and future or shorter time span research is likely to utilize the VIIRS. However, despite these advantages, Skoufias et al (2021) found that the VIIRS data do not yield significant results either for specific hazard events or for country level regressions. This is most likely due to the inherent noise in the data and the lack of good measurements due to cloud cover in certain regions.…”