Assessing the Impact of Builtup Areas on Development of Urban Heat Island in Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

The aim of present study is to evaluate and assess the impact of built-up areas on development of the urbanheat island (UHI).The study mainly focused on Lahore, which is one of the mega cities of Pakistan. In terms ofpopulation size, Lahore is the second largest city of Pakistan with 11.13 million inhabitants. The geospatial techniques(Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System) along with statistical applications were applied to find out theLand Cover Land Uses changes and consequent development of builtup areas over the period of 2000 and 2015. Tostudy the UHI, the meteorological data of each 30 minutes for 36 days starting from 30th June 2015 to 4th August 2015were collected through direct on site observation by using digital weather station. The results of UHI were crosschecked by obtaining land surface temperature by using thermal infrared (TIR) band 6 of the Landsat-7 TM. The resultsshow that the LCLU and built environment have direct impact on development of UHI. The areas where there wasmore vegetation cover had less temperature while in urban areas, the temperature was measured higher. Over the periodof 36 days, the average UHI remained 5.5°C and the highest intensity of UHI was observed as 8.3°C thus augmentedresearch rationale. The study suggests establishment of a thick network of automatic weather stations in Lahore togauge the urban heat island intensity and to plant indigenous trees on vacant swaths and develop urban forest tomitigate city’s rising temperature.