VIIRS Nighttime Lights (Annual Composites)
MH Subset Needed Global annual nighttime light composites from VIIRS Day/Night Band at ~500m resolution. Maharashtra subsets enable mapping urbanization, electrification, economic activity, and informal settlements at district level.
Map Maharashtra's economic growth using nighttime light intensity
Maharashtra subset not yet extracted. This is a global dataset that contains data covering Maharashtra. A regional subset can be extracted by filtering on geographic coordinates or administrative boundaries.
Quick Start
import rasterio
with rasterio.open("VNL_v22_2023.tif") as src:
# Read Maharashtra extent (approx bounding box)
window = rasterio.windows.from_bounds(72.6, 15.5, 80.9, 22.1, src.transform)
mh_data = src.read(1, window=window)
print(f"Mean radiance: {mh_data[mh_data > 0].mean():.2f} nW/cm²/sr")
Size
~2 GB/year (global), ~50 MB (MH subset)
Organization
Colorado School of Mines / NOAA
Schema
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|
| latitude | float | Grid cell center latitude |
| longitude | float | Grid cell center longitude |
| avg_rad | float | Average radiance (nanoWatts/cm²/sr) |
| cf_cvg | integer | Cloud-free observation count for the compositing period |
Build With This
Year-over-year urbanization tracker for all MH districts
Rural electrification progress dashboard using light intensity change
GDP estimation model trained on nighttime lights vs known economic data
AI Use Cases
Urban sprawl detectionGDP and economic activity estimation at district levelRural electrification monitoringInformal settlement mappingDisaster impact assessment
Last verified: 2026-03-07