Economic activity intelligence uses Earth-observation proxies to nowcast trade, production, logistics, and consumption where official statistics are delayed, sparse, or politically unreliable.^[1]

Night-time light radiance is the clearest satellite-native proxy: NASA Black Marble corrects VIIRS Day/Night Band observations for cloud, atmosphere, terrain, vegetation, snow, lunar, and stray-light effects, producing daily and composite night-light products suitable for human-activity analysis.^[2]^[3]

Optical and SAR time series add site-level evidence: ports, storage yards, construction sites, industrial plants, vessels, and storage tanks can be monitored for occupancy or change. These observations are activity indicators, not direct GDP measurements; they need calibration against ground truth, sector models, and known site inventories.^[1]

Commercial economic-intelligence products turn these proxies into sector indices. SpaceKnow, for example, offers satellite-derived manufacturing and logistics indicators built from detected changes at industrial locations.^[4]