Assessing the impact of land use land cover changes on land surface temperature over Pune city, India

Abstract

The intensification of land surface temperature (LST) is a consequence of changes in land use land cover (LULC). Variation of LST and LULC can be extracted from satellite images in different spatial and temporal resolutions. Thus, in the present study, we have used remote sensing and GIS techniques to quantify the land surface temperature variation over different land use land cover classes from 1990 to 2019 using Landsat data in Pune city. Furthermore, the effect of LULC changes on seasonal land surface temperature modification over the urbanized area is also assessed in this study. The result suggests an overall increase of built-up area from 116.6 km2 in 1990 to 166.9 km2 in 2019, witnessing a 43.1% rise during the study period, while the other LULC classes show a decreasing trend, most significantly by agriculture (40.8%) followed by scrubland (37.1%), fallow land (22%), water body (11.1%) and vegetation (2.8%). The 2009–2019 decade was found to be most significant in terms of change in LULC aerial extent over the city as compared to the other two decades (1990–1999 and 1999–2009). The overall mean land surface temperature over the city shows an increasing trend during the summer season (5.8%) and decreasing in the winter season (12.4%) from 1990 to 2019. The change in mean LST over different LULC classes shows a significant increasing and positive trend during the summer season as compared to the negative and decreasing trend of the winter season. The mean LST over agriculture, shrub land, water body, and fallow land shows an increasing trend as compared to the built-up area during both summer and winter season from 1990 to 2019. Furthermore, the study also confirms a higher LST over the surrounding rural area by 1.4 °C, as compared to the city urban area, which suggests the occurrence of the urban cool island over the city. The results of the present study will be very helpful for an urban planner and policymakers to evaluate the current urbanization status and improve their decisions to make cities better and sustaining in the future.