Exploring Night Light as Proxy for Poverty and Income Inequality Approximation in Thailand

This paper explores the feasibility in using Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB) night light data as a proxy for approximation of socioeconomic indicators like poverty rate and income inequality. The feasibility is assessed by testing if features of night light data correlate to: 1) the rate of poverty and 2) income inequality. The poverty rate is derived from Thai People Map and Analytics Platform (TPMAP), a project initiated by the Thai government with the goal of developing a data analytics platform for precision poverty alleviation by enabling policymakers to identify the poor, locate them, and understand their basic needs. The poverty rate from TPMAP is computed using Multidimensional Poverty Index and income inequality statistics are calculated using data from three disparate sources. These two measures are used as the target of this study. We show night light data features that have high correlations with monetary based income features and moderate correlations with poverty rate at the province level of Thailand.