Impact of urbanization and land cover change on urban climate: Case study of Nigeria

The aim of work was to quantify the impact of urbanization on Land Surface Temperature (LST) of Potiskum and Environs, Yobe State, Nigeria. Remotely sensed data of Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) of April 2003, April 2008 and Landsat 8 OLI of April 2015 coupled with meteorological data were used to study the LST. The maximum likelihood classifier was employed to classify the satellite data. Less built-up expansion from 2003 to 2008 compared to 2008–2015 was observed. The validation was performed with the available meteorological data of the stations. The rapid population growth is attributed to expansion of the built-up area and migration of rural people to search employment opportunities and good life. The increase in vegetation cover was witnessed in Potiskum and Environs, hence it has some impact on LST. The LST in the urban area showed low value due to afforestation and adoption of good policies to combat with rise in temperature in urban areas. Therefore, the LST classes of 30 °C–40 °C and > 40 °C showed decrease of area covered from 2003 to 2015. The result shows that in 2003, 34.23 °C of LST was observed while 35.29 °C and 35.60 °C of LST values were also observed in 2008 & 2015, respectively. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.