Analysis of Relationship between Land Surface Temperature and Land Use in Colombo Municipal Area in Sri Lanka, Using Geographical Information System and Remote Sensing

Abstract

The recent climatological studies try to find out the relationship between land surface
temperature and land use type. Specially urban and industrial area was selected for that
study, as well as this study was done in Colombo Municipal Council (CMC). The CMC
area was central industrial and economical area in Sri Lanka. The majority of people travel
to the Colombo Metropolitan area daily for their needs. In the present, both developed and
developing countries face to global warming. As the developing country in Sri Lanka,
industrial and vehicle usage was very high in the city center in Colombo. In that case land
surface temperature (LST) increased day by day.

The main objective of this study to analyse the LST using Landsat TM, ETM+ and Landsat
8 images. In addition find out the relationship between LST and land use in CMC area. Arc
GIS 10.1 and ERDAS 2014 software were used for this study. It was found out the LST
range from 22° C to 33° C. Some of the high temperature zones are shown in Fort and
Maradana. Generally there was a high building density (commercial and industrial) and
traffic density in while the day. In 1987 high temperature was also recorded close to the Fort
and Maradana. However, it has gradually increased to the other areas. It was seen that the
impact of that LST distributes to the southern part of the CMC. In addition, all the LST of
all areas of CMC passed minimum 30° C during the day time.

Keywords: Land surface temperature, Remote sensing, Land use, Colombo