Effects of Vegetation on Urban Heat Island Using Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS Imagery in Tropical Urban Climate

Abstract

The decrease in the number of vegetated areas has an impact on increasing Land Surface Temperature (LST) which encourages the formation of urban heat islands. A lot of literature discusses the correlation between soil surface temperature and vegetation, but does not consider the geographical aspects and climatological conditions of the tropics located at the equator. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the effect of vegetation cover and surface temperature in the research area which will later be used as a reference in recommending the need for green open spaces in urban areas with tropical climates. In this study, a case study was conducted in the city of Gorontalo using the Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS image interpretation method, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) algorithm, the Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI) algorithm, and land surface temperature measurements using thermal bands 10 and 11. The results showed that areas with high vegetation index had low temperatures while areas with low vegetation index had high temperatures. The effect of wetland area depends on land use conditions at the time of image recording and water bodies have no significant effect on LST.