Examining the Impact of China’s Poverty Alleviation on Nighttime Lighting in 831 State-Level Impoverished Counties

Yiguo Shen, Xiaojie Chen, Qingxin Yao, Jiahui Ding, Yuhan Lai and Yongheng Rao ()
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Yiguo Shen: School of Public Administration, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
Xiaojie Chen: School of Public Administration, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
Qingxin Yao: School of Public Administration, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
Jiahui Ding: School of Public Administration, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
Yuhan Lai: School of Public Administration, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
Yongheng Rao: School of Public Administration, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 6, 1-17

Abstract: China’s poverty alleviation projects have made significant contributions to global poverty eradication. This study investigates the impact of China’s poverty alleviation projects on nighttime lighting in 831 state-level impoverished counties using the “NPP-VIIRS-like” dataset and discusses the difference of land use change under different nighttime light clusters in order to provide reference for future policy formulation and implementation. Our results show that the growth of total intensity of nighttime lighting (GRTNL) and the year-on-year growth rate of total intensity of nighttime lighting (YGRTNL) in China’s impoverished counties are 103.74% and 9.69% from 2013 to 2021, respectively, which are both higher than the average levels of all counties (67.16%, 6.77%) and non-poor counties (64.68%, 6.56%) in China during the same period. Additionally, we discovered that impoverished counties that lifted out of poverty earlier had significantly higher nighttime lighting intensity than those later. Regional analysis reveals that the growth of nighttime lighting intensity shows a trend of decreasing from the central (1550.89 nW·cm −2 ·sr −1 ) to the eastern (924.57), western (762.57), and northeastern regions (588.07), while the growth rate decreases from western regions (282.46%) to the eastern (189.13%), central (178.56%), and northeastern (108.07%). We also identified that Gini coefficient of nighttime lighting has a trend of “slow and short-term rise-rapid and continuous decline”. Moreover, nighttime lighting growth had similar trends with land use change, especially construction land. Overall, our study provides novel insights into the relationship between poverty alleviation effects and nighttime lighting in China’s impoverished counties, which could inform future policy-making and research in this area.

Keywords: nighttime lighting; poverty alleviation; land use change; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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