Impact of Green Spaces on the Urban Microclimate through Landsat 8 and TIRS Data, in Varanasi, India

Abstract

Rapid urbanization is degrading urban environment quality day by day globally. Urban environment temperature is slowly rising globally, and some measures are required to mitigate it. Urban microclimate can be regulated by planting urban greenery. This study makes an attempt to assess the effect of ur­ban greenery on land surface temperature (LST) for the improvement of micro­climatic conditions in Varanasi city, India. The influence of an urban heat island is studied using the Landsat-8 OLI/TIRS data in 2017 as a case study of Varanasi city, India. The spatial distribution of LST in the urban area is retrieved to de­scribe their local effects on urban heat island (UHI). The correlation among LST, the normalized difference build-up index (NDBI), and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) are examined to explore the influences of the urban granary and the build-up land on urban microclimate. Results exposed that the central portion of Varanasi displayed the highest surface temperature compared to the surrounding open area, the areas having dense built-up displayed higher temperatures, and the areas covered by vegetation and water bodies exhibited lower temperatures. This study shows that urban green space will help to miti­gate the urban microclimate and it is important for the sustainable development of urban environments as well as to provide healthy quality of life to the urban dwellers.