基于DMSP/OLS非辐射定标的夜间灯光平均强度数据构建了一个反映区域城市化水平的灯光指数 ,并分析了该灯光指数与城市化水平在省级尺度上的相关性。研究表明 ,灯光指数与反映城市化水平的复合指数存在较高的相关关系 ,可以用于我国城市化水平及其时空分异分析和城市化进程监测。

Urbanization, stimulated by striking economic development, has been proceeded in China on a large scale and with striking rapidity in the past two decades. It is necessary to monitor and model urbanization process of China for its sustainable development. This paper presents a new light index for regional urbanization level estimation considering the light spatial distribution and intensity based on DMSP/OLS data, which was pre-processed by Japan National Institute of Environmental Studies. The correlation analysis between light index and composite urbanization index was carried out in province scale. The result shows that there is significant relationship between two indexes. The regression model for composite urbanization index estimation using light index was also developed with R 2 equal to 0.793. It suggests that light index is an effective and applicable index for regional urbanization analysis and monitoring. Through the analysis of light index change in China during 1992 to 1998, it is shown that the urbanization level in China is different from high level in East China to low level in West China, and urbanization level was improved largely during 1992 to 1998, especially in provinces of East China.