The Use of Land Cover Indices for Rapid Surface Urban Heat Island Detection from Multi-Temporal Landsat Imageries

Nagihan Aslan,Dilek Koc-San

doi:10.3390/ijgi10060416

Nagihan Aslan, Dilek Koc-San

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi10060416

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Abstract

The aims of this study were to determine surface urban heat island (SUHI) effects and to analyze the land use/land cover (LULC) and land surface temperature (LST) changes for 11 time periods from the years 2002 to 2020 using Landsat time series images. Bursa, which is the fourth largest metropolitan city in Turkey, was selected as the study area, and Landsat multi-temporal images of the summer season were used. Firstly, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), soil-adjusted vegetation index (SAVI), modified normalized difference water index (MNDWI) and index-based built-up index (IBI) were created using the bands of Landsat images, and LULC classes were determined by applying automatic thresholding. The LST values were calculated using thermal images and SUHI effects were determined. The results show that NDVI, SAVI, MNDWI and IBI indices can be used effectively for the determination of the urban, vegetation and water LULC classes for SUHI studies, with overall classification accuracies between 89.60% and 95.90% for the used images. According to the obtained results, generally the LST values increased for almost all land cover areas between the years 2002 and 2020. The SUHI magnitudes were computed by using two methods, and it was found that there was an important increase in the 18-year time period.

Highlights

Urbanization, population growth, and industrialization lead to increases in temperature, and this situation adversely affects the world, especially in urban areas
urban heat island (UHI) effects occur in almost all urban areas [11], the UHI magnitude changes according to the properties of the cities
The objectives of this study were to detect the surface urban heat island (SUHI) effects rapidly and efficiently, using solely the Landsat imageries and to compare the land surface temperature (LST), land use/land cover (LULC) and SUHI results for the years 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2020

Summary

Introduction

Urbanization, population growth, and industrialization lead to increases in temperature, and this situation adversely affects the world, especially in urban areas. By the year 2018, about 55% of the world’s population lived in urban areas, and by 2050, this proportion is expected to increase to up to 68% [1]. Urbanization positively affects the living population with social and economic welfare but has a negative impact on the natural environment [2]. Since the late 1980s, studies have shown that urban areas are generally warmer than rural areas around them, and this phenomenon is called the urban heat island (UHI) [8,9,10]. UHI effects occur in almost all urban areas [11], the UHI magnitude changes according to the properties of the cities. The use of remote sensing data is advantageous in terms of cost and time, and it allows dealing with large areas [12,24]

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Results

Conclusion