Urban Heat Islands and Vegetation Cover as a Controlling Factor

Abstract

Cities play an important role in climate change mitigation and adaptation and enhancingclimate resilience of their slum and vulnerable residents. Climate change adds to existingchallenges faced by cities. Climate change, together with a decrease in absorption capacity ofgreenhouse gasses due reduction in the amount of green cover, parks, trees and agriculturalsurfaces in urban areas, poses serious threats to urban infrastructure, access to basic servicesand quality of life in cities and negatively affect the urban economy. At the same time, rapidurban growth, growing urban poverty and increasing food prices raise concerns about urbanfood security, especially for the poor. Cities are highly vulnerable to disruption in critical(food) supplies and climate change exacerbates this vulnerability.

The main objective of this study is to examine the spatial pattern of surface temperature in theKesbewa Urban Council Area and temperature variation with the different UPAF (UrbanPeri-urban and Agriculture and Forestry) regions using space born techniques and groundverifications.

GIS and Remote Sensing techniques were the main analytical tools of this study in datacollection as well as data processing and analysis. Landsat ETM+ image from 2003 used toextract the surface temperature layer and model has verified using air temperature datacollected throughout the KUC area for the last five months period using 22 HOBO metersinstalled in different UPAF regions in the city. UPAF regions have identified and demarcatedusing Google image and visually interpreted with the field experiences.

The surface temperature model developed using satellite images is positively correlated withthe ground temperature data collected and results revealed that there is a very positiverelationship between the UPAF regions and the surface temperature.