Assessment of land use land cover changes and its impact on variations of land surface temperature in Asansol-Durgapur Development Region

Fast transformation of land use/land cover because of urban expansion profoundly influences biodiversity and ecosystem function, as well as local and regional climate. One of the more serious impacts of urbanization is the formation of urban heat island (UHI) effect. Asansol-Durgapur Development Region is the second largest urban identity in West Bengal just after Kolkata urban agglomeration. Rapid urban growth in Asansol-Durgapur Development Region has brought about fast transformation of LULC pattern which in turn significantly affect the LST. Fast transformation of land use and land cover pattern brought significant changes in LST. The study attempts to examine the influence of land use/land cover (LULC) on land surface temperature in Asansol-Durgapur Development Region by employing multi temporal satellite data. LST is extracted in three different phases seasonally (e.g. winter, summer and post- monsoon periods) by using LANDSAT 4–5 TM and LANDSAT 8 OLI over the period of 1993, 2009 and 2015. Results depict that LST increases 0.06 °C/year in winter and 0.43 °C/year in summer periods respectively and the difference of surface radiant temperature is significant over existing different LULC units. The result of the study revealed that the impervious surface, industrial area and coal mining area has high surface temperature (38 °C) and water bodies and vegetation cover has experienced low surface temperature (27 °C). The study also examined causality of association between LST and deriving factors such as NDVI, NDBI and NDWI. The result reveals that LST maximally controls by impervious surface (r = 0.95) than water bodies (r = 0.62) and vegetation cover (r = 0.61).