Modelling relationship between land use land cover changes, land surface temperature and urban heat island in Indore city of central India

Urban expansion and land surface temperature (LST) fluctuations have been negatively influenced by rapid urbanisation, which degrades the urban thermal environment. This study has endeavoured to incorporate future urban growth modelling and assess the impact of urbanization on LST over Indore City, India, using temporal Landsat satellite data for the years 2010, 2015 and 2020. The present study has utilized the Cellular Automata (CA) model to project future urban growth for the year 2025. The result shows that the built-up land has increased by 28.7% during 2010-2015 and 24.9% during 2015-2020, while a future projection of 4.7% is evident in 2025. The mean LST over the city signifies a decreasing trend during the winter and summer seasons from 2010 to 2020. Moreover, an occurrence of higher LST in the surrounding rural area is observed, witnessing cool heat island phenomenon. The urban thermal field variation index (UTFVI) map shows non-UTFVI in the urban area, which shows an increasing trend and strongest UTFVI in rural regions with decreasing trend in summer season during 2010-2020. Whereas in the winter season, the observed result suggests the opposite behaviour of UTFVI.