Nighttime‐lights satellite imagery reveals hotspots of second home mobility in rural Russia (a case study of Yaroslavl Oblast)

Abstract

Second home mobility is a well‐known phenomenon in many countries, but is widely prominent in Russia, where millions of city dwellers move to rural areas during the summertime. Combating long‐term economic decline and depopulation, second home mobility creates a promising opportunity to revitalize the countryside. While this phenomenon is largely neglected by official statistics, we suggest using satellite imagery of nighttime lights to investigate its spatial and temporal patterns. We did this with the example of Yaroslavl Oblast in Russia. This region neighbors the Moscow Capital Region. It experiences a significant inflow of second home residents. By tracking the seasonal pixel‐wise changes of nighttime light radiance in monthly composites of satellite imagery from 2015 to 2019, we located hotspots of second homes and factors determining their spatial spread in rural areas. The results were evaluated with field research. Our results confirmed earlier conclusions that second homes’ locations in rural areas are largely determined by their proximity to Moscow, natural conditions, and transport accessibility. City dwellers often choose small and even fully abandoned villages for their second homes, which stresses the important role of second home mobility in preserving cultural landscapes. The proposed data and methods are limited by missing data for the northern regions during summer months and are more suitable for areas beyond the urban fringe where nighttime‐lights data are not biased by the ‘overglow’ of large cities.

Dacha as a social and economic phenomenon and its role in rural development in Russia

“…Hence, increasingly, indirect methods are being employed, such as the analysis of satellite imagery, which allows us to determine the types and conditions of houses in rural areas, their degree of occupancy (based on nighttime illumination), and the level of land development (pathways, gardens, structures; Nefedova and Medvedev, 2022;Sheludkov and Starikova, 2022). To assess the regular movements of people between the city and the countryside, data from mobile phone operators is also utilized (Makhrova et al, 2021).…”

Suitability of NASA’s Black Marble Daily Nighttime Lights for Population Studies at Varying Spatial and Temporal Scales

“…For example, Enenkel et al (2019) used the spatial extent of power outages as detected by VIIRS DNB imagery as a proxy for disaster impacts and a potential driver for displacement related to Cyclone Idai (March 2019) in Beira, Mozambique. VIIRS DNB has also been used to estimate migration in Europe [25] and summertime shifts in population in Russia [26].…”

Summer suburbanization in Moscow Region: Investigation with nighttime lights satellite imagery

“…We suggest that significant changes in population density affect nighttime lighting in the countryside surrounding Moscow. By tracking the seasonal changes of NTL radiance, we can identify the areas that attract summer residents (Sheludkov and Starikova, 2021).…”