The Impact of Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) Changes on Land Surface Temperature in Sivas City Center and Its Surroundings and Assessment of Urban Heat Island

Determination of LULC (land use/land cover) changes in urban planning studies is very important. However, LST (land surface temperature) and UHI (urban heat island) directly associated with LU changes are the parameters that should be considered in similar studies. Therefore, Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are commonly used for obtaining this kind of information. In this study, the relationship between LULC, NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and LST in Sivas city center and its surroundings was studied by using Landsat satellite images from 1989 to 2015 and UHI intensity was also demonstrated. The results clearly show that the urban built-up areas and agricultural lands increased while barren land decreased over the study period. The changes in LST can be monitored depending on the construction materials such as the presence of green areas, the city’s unique geographical location and topography. Urban built-up and bare lands have the highest LST and the urban built-up surface temperature showed a fluctuating trend while the rural area temperature showed a tendency to decrease. The urban built-up areas increased, a positive UHI intensity was observed and also an urban heat island formation was determined.