Global Artificial Light at Night Change, 2014-2022

This repository provides both the global artificial light at night (ALAN) change dataset and the source code used in: Li, T., Wang, Z., Kyba, C., Román, M. O., Seto, K. C., Yang, Y., ... & Zhu, Z. (2026). Satellite imagery reveals increasing volatility in human night-time activity. Nature, 652(8109), 379-386. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10260-w). When making use of any of the files in this dataset, please cite both the aforementioned article and the dataset herein. The ALAN change map data generated in this study are provided in GlobalALANChange_v1beta.zip. This dataset represents global artificial light at night (ALAN) change time and change intensity at 15-arc-second spatial resolution for 2014–2022, covering terrestrial areas between 70° N and 60° S. The maps are provided at annual basis, including abrupt and gradual ALAN changes, as GeoTIFF (.tif) files. The abrupt change contains change time (in day of year) and its change intensity (in unit of nW·cm⁻²·sr⁻¹), while the gradual change contains annual cumulative change intensity (in unit of nW·cm⁻²·sr⁻¹). The MATLAB (R2022b) source code used to generate and analyze the ALAN change products is provided in VZACOLD_Code.zip. The code provides modules of the VZA-COLD algorithm, including nighttime light data preprocessing, the continuous nighttime light change detection model, and post-processing and exporting ALAN change maps. This dataset was generated from NASA’s daily Black Marble nighttime light product Collection 1 data (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2018.03.017), using the Viewing Zenith Angle–stratified Continuous Monitoring of Land Disturbance (VZA-COLD) algorithm (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2022.113269).