Impact of Landuse change on Urban Thermal Variance in Umuahia Urban, Nigeria: a Remote Sensing-based Approach

Abstract

This study assessed the impact of land use change on surface temperature in Umuahia in South-Eastern Nigeria from multi-temporal (1986, 2001 and 2017) landsat data. Results showed that built- up progressively increased in surface area and temperature at the expense of other land covers. The transfer matrix, reveals that within the 31 year about 59.88%  and 8.23% of vegetation and bareland were respectively converted into built up. The spatio-temporal distribution of surface temperature showed that built-up areas recorded the highest annual mean temperature of 21.50 ^oC in 1986, 22.20 ^oC in 2001 and 26.01 ^oC in 2017. Transect profiles on the surface cover revealed a gradual increase of temperature around water/ vegetation and rises rapidly over built-up and bare land areas.