Spatial Variations of Urban Heat Island Development in Khulna City, Bangladesh: Implications for Urban Planning and Development

Recent studies have made significant advancements in understanding the localized effects of urban warming in cities in the South Asian context. Taking the case of Khulna city, Bangladesh, in this paper we follow a two-pronged approach. First, we use remote sensing techniques to analyze the changing land use and land cover patterns (LULC) and their relationship with emerging land surface temperature (LST) change, that results in urban heat islands (UHI). Second, we follow up on the emergent results from the remote sensing analysis to draw key links with the existing UHI spatio-temporal variations with existing and future planning pathways. Our findings suggest that rapidly reducing green spaces and increased built-up areas are contributing strongly towards increasing UHI. The overall increase of LST in the city is nearly 2 °C in the past 5 years, which calls for more urgent climate adaptive planning and action. Document analysis of the Khulna city master plan demonstrates that several mitigation strategies were initiated through the Khulna Master Plan 2001, yet key implementation barriers continue to persist. We conclude by arguing for a holistic approach to green space planning in the city (through strategic action and institutional planning approaches), coupled with local scaled adaptation and mitigation strategies, that can help the planning process to deal with the challenges associated with UHI increase in urban areas.