Shining a light on Dar es Salaam - 1992 to 2020: utilizing nightlight intensity data as a tool for modelling rapid urban growth patterns

This paper utilizes remotely-sensed nightlight intensity (NLI) data to construct and evaluate a multi-temporal urban growth model for Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, between 1992 and 2020. This contributes towards the creation of effective, globally-available modelling and monitoring tools to support urban planners, policy-makers and communities in contexts of data-sparsity and rapid urban growth: a duality often found in the global south. Findings reveal that multi-temporal NLI models can offer new, systematic insights into patterns of urban growth at multiple intra-city scales. For instance, this NLI model identifies and tracks parts of the city which are likely to have experienced different patterns of spatial and/or socio-economic development between 1992 and 2020.