Analyzing spatial relationship between land use/land cover (LULC) and land surface temperature (LST) of three urban agglomerations (UAs) of Eastern India

Abstract

The trend of increasing land surface temperatures (LST) and emergence of urban heat islands (UHI) has become a pressing challenge for city planners and policy makers. In developing countries like India in particular, the rapid rate of urbanization occurring at present has caused significant alteration in climate, thereby causing a rise in health risks. This study was thus undertaken to examine the relationship between land use/land cover (LULC) and LST using remote sensing data over three major urban agglomerations UAs), namely the English Bazar urban agglomerations (EBUA), Raiganj urban agglomeration (RUA) and Balurghat urban agglomeration (BUA) in Eastern India. Seasonal variations of surface urban heat islands (SUHI) were assessed for a better understanding of the spatial variation in SUHI patterns across UAs. The results showed that built-up areas, especially the high density residential zones (HDRZ), presented relatively higher LST and SUHI across UAs. From the results of landscape metrics, it was observed that SUHI was higher in core areas across the UAs which were largely dominated by HDRZs. The findings will certainly assist in understanding the spatial pattern of SUHI over UAs and further help to plan and implement effective land use planning for small and medium size cities of India.