Assessing the relationship between local climatic zones (LCZs) and land surface temperature (LST) ? A case study of Sriniketan- Santiniketan Planning Area (SSPA), West Bengal, India

The concept Local Climatic Zones (LCZs) is a comprehensive classification scheme developed to design urban climate studies particularly to quantify the relationship in between urban morphology and urban heal islands (UHIs). Land surface temperature (LST) data obtained from satellite images were used to examine the relationship between land surface temperature and Local Climatic Zones in Sriniketan-Sanniketan Planning Area (SSPA) using GIS and remote sensing techniques. The effect of Surface Urban Heal Island was assessed using Urban Thermal Field Variance Index (UTFVI) quantitatively. The results show that land surface temperature increased by 0.34 °C per year and 0.55 °C per year during winter and summer season respectively and a significant variation of LST over the LCZs exist. The maximum and minimum LST is recorded in the month of April and January. The study landscape enjoys excellent to normal thermal conditions (UTFVI <0.000 and up to 0.010) where the presence of different natural land covers are adequate. From the results it is suggested that effect of LST on the ecological condition induced by urbanization can be regulated not only by balancing land use/ land cover types but also optimizing proper urban planning. This study may also assist the planners for climate sensitive planning. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.