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Global urban activity changes from COVID-19 physical distancing restrictions
Srija Chakraborty1, Eleanor C Stokes2, Olivia Alexander3
1Universities Space Research Association, Washington, DC, USA. schakraborty@usra.edu.
Scientific Data
|January 17, 2025
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic altered human activity globally. Satellite nighttime lights reveal daily, localized changes in urban areas, creating a dataset for post-pandemic environmental and economic impact studies.
Area of Science:
- Earth System Science
- Environmental Monitoring
- Socioeconomic Impact Analysis
Background:
- The COVID-19 pandemic induced widespread changes in human activity, impacting the environment and economy.
- The pandemic served as a natural experiment to study disruptions in the global Earth System.
- Quantifying these changes globally and at a local level is crucial for scientific understanding.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a globally available, daily, and locally-resolved dataset of human activity changes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- To utilize satellite-derived nighttime lights for quantifying atypical human activity.
- To support post-pandemic research on the environmental and economic impacts of human activity shifts.
Main Methods:
- Employed machine learning anomaly detection algorithms on satellite-derived nighttime lights (NTL).
- Analyzed daily changes in human activity for urban areas worldwide for two years post-pandemic onset.
- Established a pre-COVID baseline for comparison and included quality assurance measures.
Main Results:
- Generated the TRacking Anomalous COVID-19 induced changEs in NTL (TRACE-NTL) dataset.
- Provided the first daily, global resolution of COVID-19 disruptions for all metropolitan regions.
- Quantified atypical changes in human activity based on nighttime light intensity.
Conclusions:
- The TRACE-NTL dataset offers a unique resource for studying the multifaceted impacts of the pandemic.
- This data enables detailed analysis of how human activity alterations affect environmental systems.
- Facilitates research into the socioeconomic consequences and recovery patterns following major global disruptions.
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