The process of urbanization is increasingly important in today’s world. Large scale urbanization is associated with several problems. This study focuses on the state of Maharashtra in India (including the megacity of Mumbai and its surrounds – the largest in India and the 3rd largest in the world with a population of approximately 18.1 billion). The concept of sustainable urban development was introduced in the Brundtland Report, “Our Common Future” and popularized in many global gatherings beginning with the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. But it is difficult to measure.
This paper assesses the utility of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Programme (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS) for characterizing urbanization. DMSP/OLS records visible and thermal emissive imaging data of the earth daily at night. Radiance values obtained from DMSP/OLS night-time images (2001) were compared with the social parameters of sustainable development gathered during the 2001 Indian census. Issues of spatial aggregation between the DMSP/OLS and Indian census collection districts are considered. The results show significant correlation between radiance and total literate population (r = 0.66, p < 0.01) and Work Participation Rate (r = 0.50, p < 0.05). The paper shows promising preliminary results that radiance calibrated DMSP/OLS night-time images may be successfully used as a surrogate tool to measure and understand the sustainability of urban areas.