Macro- and micro-level studies using Urban Heat Islands to simulate effects of greening, building materials and other mitigating factors in Mumbai city

Abstract

ABSTRACTA problem common to cities around the world is the formation and intensification of Urban Heat Islands (UHIs) [Weng, Dengsheng, and Schubring 2004. “Estimation of Land Surface Temperature – Vegetation Abundance Relationship for Urban.” Remote Sensing of Environment 89: 467–483]. Heat Islands are present in almost every city [Sobrino and Leonardo. 2004. “Land Surface Temperature Retrieval from LANDSAT TM 5.” Remote Sensing of Environment 90: 434–440]. Urbanization leads to replacement of forest and vegetative regions with the impervious materials like concrete, asphalt, bricks, etc. [Rizwan, Dennis, and Liu 2008. “A Review on the Generation, Determination and Mitigation of Urban Heat Island.” Journal of Environmental Sciences 20 (1): 120–128; Turner, 2016. “Land System Architecture for Urban Sustainability: New Directions for Land System Science Illustrated by Application to the Urban Heat Island Problem.” Journal of Land Use Science 11 (6): 689–697]. A large amount of land cover is transformed into the concrete and asphalted surface [Akbari, Pomerantz, and Taha 2001. “Cool Surfaces and Shade Trees to Reduce Energy Use and Improve Air Quality in Urban Areas.” Solar Energy 70 (3): 295–310]. The study analyses UHIs at two different levels, macro-level and micro-level. Macro-level study is carried out on whole Mumbai city to find out the hotspots on different landuse/landcover. The main reasons for differences in temperatures in these areas were studied. Land surface temperature in the areas like Airport in Mumbai increased by 6.5% from January 1999 to January 2013 and around 12% from April 1999 to 2013. In the micro-level, two areas were selected, one barren and other green to analyse the impact of land cover on the heat in the city.