Estimation of Domestic Water Consumption in China and the United States Using Nighttime Satellite Imagery

Nighttime remote sensing imagery collected in 2000 and 2003 is exploited to estimate domestic water consumption (DWC) in China and the United States at province/state level. Sum light derived from satellite imagery has a statistically significant correlation with official DWC both in China and the United States. However, the differences of the patterns of settlement and DWC of the two countries lead to the differences of the estimation processes and the precision of estimations. These findings offer potential for compiling and mapping annual DWC in the future.