Climatological Human Comfort Using Heat and Humidity Index (Humidex) in Gadingkulon, Malang

Abstract

A human living in certain area was controlled by dynamic environmental condition. The dynamic changes of environment condition including temperature and humidity were the main factor influencing the climatological human living comfort. Various of those factors were specific and unique following the characteristics of that area. Most characteristics of that determined to analyse temperature and humidity were elevation and land coverage. The more difference of both elevation and land coverage were, the more various human living comfort was. That condition could be measured by Heat and Humidity Index (Humidex) using temperature and humidity data. Gadingkulon was one of area where landcover changes took place fast enough. The vegetation changes to be built-up areas were dominated by residential area nowadays. This research aims to analyse Humidex of Gadingkulon followed by dominant influencing factor of the index, whether elevation or land cover. To do so, both SRTM 30 meters imagery and Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS satellite imagery was used to present spatial distribution of elevation and vegetation indices (NDVI), respectively. Correlation of elevation to Humidex and NDVI to Humidex were measured statistically. Linear regression was also used to show the mathematical relationship of both variables to Humidex. The result showed that determination coefficient of elevation to Humidex was 0,70 (it means that contribution of 70%) which was more correlate than that of NDVI to Humidex. Comparing the previous correlation, NDVI to Humidex's correlation only delivered the contribution of 58 % influencing human living comfort. It strongly indicated that climatological comfort of human living was more controlled by elevation. The difference of landcover density was not quite strong enough to control that comfort condition of Gadingkulon.