Influence of land use/land cover change on land surface temperature using RS and GIS techniques

Remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) techniques have been extensively used over the world for the study of chronological changes in land use/land cover (LULC) and land surface temperature (LST). Moreover, understanding the relationship between them is the most important to manage lands. This study explores the application of RS/GIS for identifying LULC change and assessing its impact on LST using temperature-vegetation index (TVX) space in the east sub-basins of Urmia Lake basin, Iran. The results showed that most changes due to agricultural activities were observable as the pixel migrated from the high temperature-sparse vegetation condition to the low temperature-dense vegetation condition from 1989 to 2002; while, in addition to agricultural activities, due to urbanisation and human activities, the pixel migrated from the low temperature-dense vegetation condition to the high temperature-dense vegetation condition from 2002 to 2011 in the TVX space for entire case study. In general, the LULC change is a significant factor for LST increase or decrease, and LST changes mostly related with LULC changes in the study area.