Using Landsat and nighttime lights for supervised pixel-based image classification of urban land cover

Reliable representations of global urban extent remain limited, hindering scientific progress across a range of disciplines that study functionality of sustainable cities. We present an efficient and low-cost machine-learning approach for pixel-based image classification of built-up areas at a large geographic scale using Landsat data. Our methodology combines nighttime-lights data and Landsat 8 and overcomes the lack of extensive ground-reference data. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our methodology, which is implemented in Google Earth Engine, through the development of accurate 30m resolution maps that characterize built-up land cover in three geographically diverse countries: India, Mexico, and the US. Our approach highlights the usefulness of data fusion techniques for studying the built environment and is a first step towards the creation of an accurate global-scale map of urban land cover over time. •An approach is proposed to map built-up land cover at a large geographical scale.•Our data fusion approach utilizes nighttime-lights data and Landsat imagery.•The approach overcomes the lack of extensive ground-reference data for urban research.•Hexagonal tessellation partition improves classification of heterogeneous land cover.•High quality maps of built-up LC are produced for 3 geographically diverse countries.