Abstract
Land use land cover (LULC) of city regions is strongly affected by urbanization and affects the thermal environment of urban centers by influencing the surface temperature of core city areas and their surroundings. These issues are addressed in the current study, which focuses on two provincial capitals in Pakistan, i.e., Lahore and Peshawar. Using Landsat data, LULC is determined with the aim to (a) examine the spatio-temporal changes in LULC over a period of 20 years from 1998 to 2018 using a CA-Markov model, (b) predict the future scenarios of LULC changes for the years 2023 and 2028, and (c) study the evolution of different LULC categories and investigate its impacts on land surface temperature (LST). The results for Peshawar city indicate the significant expansion in vegetation and built-up area replacing barren land. The vegetation cover and urban area of Peshawar have increased by 25.6%, and 16.3% respectively. In contrast, Lahore city urban land has expanded by 11.2% while vegetation cover decreased by (22.6%). These transitions between LULC classes also affect the LST in the study areas. Transformation of vegetation cover and water surface into built-up areas or barren land results in the increase in the LST. In contrast, the transformation of urban areas and barren land into vegetation cover or water results in the decrease in LST. The different LULC evolutions in Lahore and Peshawar clearly indicate their effects on the thermal environment, with an increasing LST trend in Lahore and a decrease in Peshawar. This study provides a baseline reference to urban planners and policymakers for informed decisions.
Highlights
The world’s population is growing rapidly [1] and people are moving from rural to urban areas [2], leading to a strong increase in urbanization [3]
This research was carried out to quantify the individual contribution of different Land use land cover (LULC) transformations to land surface temperature (LST) in Lahore and Peshawar city from 1998-2018, and future predictions of LULC for 2023 and 2028 by using cellular automata (CA)-Markov model
The results indicate that the average change in LST (◦C) from 1998 to 2018 due to the transitions between the four different LULC classes is presented in Table 10 for each type of change: the transition from built-up and barren land to vegetation and water cover results in a decrease in LST, while the transition from vegetation and water to built-up and barren land results in an increase in LST
Summary
The world’s population is growing rapidly [1] and people are moving from rural to urban areas [2], leading to a strong increase in urbanization [3]. Two of the most important parameters associated with the urban environment are land use land cover (LULC) and land surface temperature (LST) [6,7]. Variation in different land use categories, especially the transformation of vegetation land to the urban area, can effectively influence the LST [8,9,10]. Many regions around the world are facing dramatic changes in LULC [13], associated with rapid urbanization [14,15,16] and with large consequences for, e.g., the increase in urban population demands of metropolitan luxuries and facilities for their living, including the construction of new residential and commercial areas, public utilities and road infrastructure [17,18,19,20]. Several natural and anthropogenic elements cause LULC changes [26,27,28,29], such as social, economic, biophysical, and political factors [30,31,32]
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