Geospatial Analysis to Understand the Linkage Between Urban Sprawl and Temperature of a Region: Micro- and Meso-Scale Study of Mumbai City

Abstract

Micro climate of any city has its unique features depending upon location and topographical features, including presence of waterbodies and forest areas. In the present study, micro/meso scale climate of four selected regions of Mumbai city and its suburbs is assessed in terms of land use land cover (LULC) and temperature profile of the study area. The study is aimed at understanding the effect of urbanisation on micro-climate of an area, conisdering aspect of temperature. The outcome of the study can provide information to policy makers and developers dealing with town and country planning to consider the contributing factors and adopt proper mitigation measures to avoid undesirable shift in micro-climate of an area. Remote sensing data of Landsat-5 and Landsat-8 are used for LULC analysis and land surface temperature (LST) analysis, and change over a time period of 20 years is analysed. The study revealed that a rapid increase in population in the city has led to considerable changes in land use pattern and surface temperature of the city. In the current analysis of LULC data, it is found that the built-up area increased by about 140%, whereas all other topographical features like waterbody, mangrove forest, deciduous forest, barren land and agricultural land have shown a percentage reduction as 19, 61, 18, 27 and 65%, respectively, over a period of 20 years (1998–2018). Due to this change in LULC pattern and overall other global climatic changes, an increase in snapshot temperature in the range of 3.4–8.8 °C has been observed at the regions where analysis has been done. The protected areas are the least affected, while a major effect is seen in densely populated and commercial areas. This snapshot analysis is done to understand the effects of urbanisation on local climatic factors.