Research Progress, Hotspots, and Evolution of Nighttime Light Pollution: Analysis Based on WOS Database and Remote Sensing Data

Abstract

With the rapid development of the global economy, the over-expansion of outdoor artificial light at night (ALAN) in cities has led to increasingly severe light pollution worldwide. More and more studies have paid attention to the problem of light pollution, but there is still a lack of systematic literature review on nighttime light pollution in terms of research progress, hotspots, and its evolutions. For this purpose, this study firstly analyzed current research actuality and trends about nighttime light pollution via a comprehensive retrospect of pertinent literature and summarized the adverse effects and monitoring technologies of light pollution by VOSviewer-based keyword co-occurrence technique. Additionally, the study explored the variation tendency of nighttime light pollution in typical countries from 2013 to 2021 based on remote-sensing data and further proposed management suggestions to protect the nighttime environment. The results indicate that the research popularity of nighttime light pollution has been increasing recently, especially after the opening of diversified remote-sensing data in 2012; the main research topics are dominated by adverse effects and monitoring technologies, where the latter is represented by ground survey and remote-sensing observation; the total levels of ALAN intensity are relatively high in most developed countries, but the mean and per capita values are decreasing, and the above phenomenon in developing countries show the opposite trend. This study expects to integrate the literature analysis method and remote-sensing data to demonstrate the research status and variation trends of nighttime light pollution systematically so as to provide scientific references for the assessment and management of the nighttime light environment.