Abstract

Urban heat island (UHI) is one of the environmental phenomenon which has made difficult environmental conditions for citizen. This study aims to evaluate the spatial and locational variability of Esfahan urban heat island according to the role of land use. Thus an area about 190.2 square kilometers (km2) in Esfahan, as the microclimate, was studied. In order to analyze the relationship between land use and land cover changes on Esfahan urban heat island, the images of Landsat 7 (TM and ETM +) and Landsat 8 (OLI / TIRS) on 20 July 1989, 17 August 2005, 18 August 2014 have been used. The results show that the urban areas has experienced 31% changes in positive direction; while the agricultural sector and green space havehad a reduction of 25% in their area. The analysis of the intensity of heat island show that heated cores are related topoor and barren lands with about 37/33 and 36/5. Although the most area of thermal classwere related to warm thermal class in 1989 and 2005, the average thermal classes were about 63/8%in 2014. Moreover, the locational variation distribution of Esfahan heat island shows that the locationof the heat island has gradually changed. For example in 2014 it included small parts in the south of the city, military zones and barren lands in the south, some parts in the north west and north east areas and small areas in the east of Esfahan. This means that urban development isn’t the main factor of the surface temperature increase and urban heat development, but rather the type of land use has influenced the decreasing or increasing of air temperature.

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