A geospatial analysis of land use dynamics and its impact on land surface temperature in Siliguri Jalpaiguri development region, West Bengal

Urbanization associates physical expansion of built up land which influences rapid change of land use/landcover (LULC) pattern of an area. LULC is one of the most visible results of modification of the natural features by human interventions which leads to encroachment of natural land and related degradation. The present paper relates to the exploration of remote sensing and geographic data to study the land use patterns, land cover classification, relationship between different LULC parameters and their impacts. GIS and remote sensing have been integrated as vital tool for the analysis and investigation of spatio temporal data. Siliguri Jalpaiguri planning region has been growing very rapidly over the last decades that brings great changes in the nature of land use pattern and related transformation. The result indicates 0.34 degrees C increase of land surface temperature per year and its association with spatial indices such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Water Index, and Normalized Difference Built Up Index.