Remote Sensing-Based Prediction of Temporal Changes in Land Surface Temperature and Land Use-Land Cover (LULC) in Urban Environments

Pakistan has the highest rate of urbanization in South Asia. The climate change effects felt all over the world have become a priority for regulation agencies and governments at global and regional scales with respect assessing and mitigating the rising temperatures in urban areas. This study investigated the temporal variability in urban microclimate in terms of land surface temperature (LST) and its correlation with land use-land cover (LULC) change in Lahore city for prediction of future impact patterns of LST and LULC. The LST variability was determined using the Landsat Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) and the land surface emissivity factor. The influence of LULC, using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the normalized difference building index (NDBI), and the normalized difference bareness index (NDBaI) on the variability LST was investigated applying Landsat Satellite data from 1992 to 2020. The pixel-level multivariate linear regression analysis was employed to compute urban LST and influence of LULC classes. Results revealed that an overall increase of 41.8% in built-up areas at the expense of 24%, 17.4%, and 0.4% decreases in vegetation, bare land, and water from 1992-2020, respectively. Comparison of LST obtained from the meteorological station and satellite images showed a significant coherence. An increase of 4.3 degrees C in temperature of built-up areas from 1992-2020 was observed. Based on LULC and LST trends, the same were predicted for 2025 and 2030, which revealed that LST may further increase up to 1.3 degrees C by 2030. These changes in LULC and LST in turn have detrimental effects on local as well as global climate, emphasizing the need to address the issue especially in developing countries like Pakistan.