Assessment of Surface Urban Heat Island in Three Cities Surrounded by Different Types of Land-Cover Using Satellite Images

Land-cover change is the main factor of Land Surface Temperature (LST) variation in urban areas. The temperature of man-made classes within cities is normally higher than natural classes in the surrounding areas which leads to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon. In this study, LST maps of three cities (i.e. Paris, Riyadh and Manama) are analyzed to investigate how SUHI reacts in different cities. The SUHI intensity during summer and winter is also assessed to understand the seasonal changes of SUHI. The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) images have been used as the main data source for investigating temperature variability in the urban areas. However, in order to define different types of land-cover and correlate those with AVHRR pixel values, one of Landsat sensors have also been used in each case. These include Thematic Mapper, Enhanced Thematic Mapper or Operational Land Imager, depending on their synchronization with the AVHRR images. The analysis of the temperature variation showed that the behavior of SUHI is not the same in different cities and is dependent on the land-covers surrounding the city.