Nightlights in Syria after Regime Change#
This notebook looks into the change in nightlights after regime change in Syria. Specifically, it focusses on gas flaring locations to estimate if more oil production is ahppening after the regime change.
Annual Change in Nightlights#
2023 and 2025 are compared with 2024 to look at how lights changed before and after regime change. The annual nightlight product is more stable than using monthly product and thus, may be more useful in identifying actual change in lights.
Insights
2024 saw improvement in light compared to 2023.
2025 also saw an improvement in light compred to 2024 i.e., there was more light after regime change in multiple parts of the country despite the rise in tariffs.
Annual NTL Change in Gas Flaring Locations#
Insights
In some areas there was a reduction in lights from gas flaring, but there was an increase in light from gas flaring in other in 2025 compared to 2024.
NTL Gas Flaring Location Change 2024 vs 2025#
Trends in Annual Gas Flaring#
At a national level the total sum of lights around gas flaring locations remains very similar in 2025 to 2024.
At a regional level, the lights increased in Al-Hasakeh and Aleppo but reduced in Homs, Der-ez-Zor.
Aggregated Monthly Change in Nightlights#
To compare nighttime light levels before and after the regime change, monthly rasters from the NASA Black Marble VNP46A3 product were averaged into two periods:
Pre-regime change: September 2023 – November 2024
Post-regime change: January 2025 – March 2026
June, July, and August were excluded from both periods. Summer months tend to have lower NTL data quality in this region due to reduced contrast between ambient light and sky brightness, leading to noisier readings that could obscure real changes in economic activity.
Pixels with NTL values below 0.1 are also masked out, as these are indistinguishable from background noise.
ntl_adm0_monthly
| NAME_EN | NAM_EN_REF | NAME_AR | PCODE | UPDATE_DAT | ntl_sum | date | ntl_gf_5km_sum | ntl_nogf_5km_sum | ntl_gf_10km_sum | ntl_nogf_10km_sum | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Syrian Arab Republic | Syrian Arab Republic | الجمهورية العربية السورية | SY | 2015-12-16 | 504968.784708 | 2012-01-01 | 55475.523384 | 448476.160015 | 71148.581071 | 433258.533198 |
| 1 | Syrian Arab Republic | Syrian Arab Republic | الجمهورية العربية السورية | SY | 2015-12-16 | 451416.755520 | 2012-02-01 | 59901.738939 | 391234.495103 | 73097.799104 | 377851.962366 |
| 2 | Syrian Arab Republic | Syrian Arab Republic | الجمهورية العربية السورية | SY | 2015-12-16 | 456881.688341 | 2012-03-01 | 60570.973861 | 395554.432010 | 74696.989673 | 381680.331094 |
| 3 | Syrian Arab Republic | Syrian Arab Republic | الجمهورية العربية السورية | SY | 2015-12-16 | 625148.449726 | 2012-04-01 | 62336.915212 | 562417.112849 | 86523.013806 | 537975.922605 |
| 4 | Syrian Arab Republic | Syrian Arab Republic | الجمهورية العربية السورية | SY | 2015-12-16 | 743116.377545 | 2012-05-01 | 63281.418445 | 678984.013007 | 92011.367867 | 650278.254139 |
| ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| 166 | Syrian Arab Republic | Syrian Arab Republic | الجمهورية العربية السورية | SY | 2015-12-16 | 413750.274790 | 2025-11-01 | 118940.461801 | 294222.184583 | 131656.271560 | 281595.957412 |
| 167 | Syrian Arab Republic | Syrian Arab Republic | الجمهورية العربية السورية | SY | 2015-12-16 | 357822.173956 | 2025-12-01 | 110229.091551 | 247191.703392 | 119001.667551 | 238373.518299 |
| 168 | Syrian Arab Republic | Syrian Arab Republic | الجمهورية العربية السورية | SY | 2015-12-16 | 319665.500387 | 2026-01-01 | 103797.097052 | 215603.233154 | 110395.423280 | 208892.175831 |
| 169 | Syrian Arab Republic | Syrian Arab Republic | الجمهورية العربية السورية | SY | 2015-12-16 | 381456.195388 | 2026-02-01 | 89514.995790 | 291632.755810 | 97575.959063 | 283453.759558 |
| 170 | Syrian Arab Republic | Syrian Arab Republic | الجمهورية العربية السورية | SY | 2015-12-16 | 311170.941387 | 2026-03-01 | 76317.179171 | 234514.526567 | 82655.148149 | 228145.149275 |
171 rows × 11 columns