Increases in Night Lights Intensity Reveal Extreme Events: A Case of Study on the Ongoing Conflict in Ukraine

Abstract

Analyzing night lights images allows identifying and monitoring affected areas during conflicts, as an overall decrease in brightness indicates abandoned or destroyed buildings, curfews, or power shortages. While detecting decrease in lights intensity is an established technique to identify critical areas during conflicts, the causes of appearing bright lights have not been extensively studied. An increase in brightness may be related to extreme events, such as fires resulting from bombing. This paper shows several examples supporting this new use of these images, validated using high-resolution optical earth observation data and ancillary information sources in the frame of the conflict in Ukraine which has been ongoing since February 2022.