Night-Time Lights VIIRS Series (2012-2024) Aggregated at NUTS-3 Level for the European Union

This data set provides an annual time series (2012-2024) of night-time radiance derived from the NOAA VIIRS-DNB sensor (product VCMCFG), aggregated over the 1 167 NUTS-3 regions of the European Union (NUTS 2021 version). Each year is represented by the median of monthly mosaics for the period August – November.For every region the file reports: mean radiance (nW cm⁻² sr⁻¹) integrated radiance (W sr⁻¹) mean percentage of cloud-free observations (%) surface area (m²) Inter-annual calibration offsets and a stable-lights mask have been applied to ensure comparability. Coverage Dimension Range Temporal 2012 – 2024 (13 annual observations) Spatial EU-27, NUTS-3 level — CRS EPSG:4326 Analysis resolution 15 km (re-projection and aggregation scale) Data sources Source Purpose NOAA/VIIRS/DNB/MONTHLY_V1/VCMCFG Night-time radiance (avg_rad) and cloud cover (cf_cvg) HYDE 3.2 – Population 2013 Population mask and reprojection MODIS MCD43A3 Surface albedo for seasonal correction World Atlas 2015 Natural sky brightness reference Eurostat NUTS-3 (2021) Administrative boundaries Methodology Temporal subset – VIIRS monthly mosaics from August to November, per year. Radiometric correction – additive offsets by year to normalise sensor gain 0 (2012-2016) · −0.20 (2017-2019) · −0.24 (2020-2023) · −0.305 (2024) Stable-lights mask (2012-2018): radiance exceeding World Atlas 2015 background radiance ≥ 0.27 nW cm⁻² sr⁻¹ Final threshold – pixels with radiance < 0.4 nW cm⁻² sr⁻¹ are discarded. Zonal statistics – for each NUTS-3 region: viirs_rad_mean_<year> — mean radiance (nW cm⁻² sr⁻¹) viirs_rad_sum_<year> — integrated radiance (W sr⁻¹) = Σ(radiance × pixel-area) × 10⁻⁵ viirs_cld_mean_<year> — mean cloud-free observations (%) area — region surface (m²) Variables and units Column / prefix Unit Description area m² Region surface area viirs_rad_mean_* nW cm⁻² sr⁻¹ Annual mean radiance (masked pixels only) viirs_rad_sum_* W sr⁻¹ Annual integrated radiance (see methodology)