Global Mapping of City-Level Green Growth Progress from Space

This study proposes an approach for measuring “green growth” in cities using satellite data: we read changes in nightime lights luminosity to measure growth, and measure GHG emisisons using a proxy: NO₂ , which is co-emitted during combustion.

We apply atmospheric transport modelling to trace NO₂ plumes to sources, to arrive at a dataset of city-level emissions over time.

To track growth we observe changes in nighttime lights luminosity. This timeseries is built using the VIIRS DNB instrument, constrained by regional statistics.

The results show that many cities are becoming both cleaner and wealthier ("green", in the study's color scheme). Others, particularly in South Asia and the Middle East, continue to grow but with rising emissions ("brown" growth). We observe that decoupling growth from pollution is possible but uneven. We also see some cities with undesirable trends: some are "red", who are getting both poorer and dirtier, and others are "gray", where growth is reversing and both emissions and GDP are falling.

Using satellite sensors to measure green growth at the city level offers an affordable, practical, and repeatable method to track urban sustainability and measure which policies work.