Temporal Variation of Land Surface Temperature in Response to Changes in Vegetation Index of Bhawal National Park, Bangladesh

Abstract

Bhawal National Park is one of the 17 national parks in Bangladesh which is mainly a deciduous Sal forest situated very close to the capital city of Dhaka. It is the most threatened and declining protected area of Bangladesh as the development of heavy industries, human intrusion and urbanization have been taking place very rapidly in this area. This human disturbance is causing rapid deforestation over time in this protected area resulting in high land surface temperature and thus warming of the atmosphere. The vegetation index has a relatable significance on the land surface temperature distribution. This study investigates the generality of the normalized difference of vegetation index (NDVI) and land surface temperature (LST) correlations encountered over a wide range of vegetation coverage areas of the Bhawal National Park during the winter season. Information on LST and NDVI was obtained from long-term (30 years) datasets acquired from Landsat 5 TM and Landsat 8 OLI after atmospheric correction. The motives of the study are to signify the relation of temporal variation of land surface temperature in response to vegetation cover and investigate the trend. To assess the relation between thermal radiance and vegetation cover amount, the normalized difference of vegetation index is used. Regression analysis is used to find the correlation between LST and NDVI. It is finalized by the correlation, between NDVI and LST, and the regression coefficient from NDVI to LST is found negative.