ASSESSMENT OF URBAN HEAT ISLAND TRENDS IN FOUR MUNICIPALITIES IN EDO STATE USING REMOTE SENSING AND GIS TECHNIQUES

ABSTRACT

Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon arises from heat accumulation in urban areas resulting from urban development and human activities. This study was carried out to assess urban heat island in four municipalities of Edo State, Nigeria. The study was conducted using data obtained from Landsat-8 using Google Earth Pro applications and analysed using ArcGIS. The results obtained revealed that there was a reduction in the land surface area covered by vegetation from 3300.38sqKm (93.98%) to 2366.51sqKm (67.31%). Over the same period, the areas covered by shrubs and built-up lands increased from 56.60sqKm (1.61%) to 656.22sqKm (18.67%) and 154.84sqKm (4.41%) to 487.07sqKm (13.85%). Also, from 2020 to 2023, there was an increase in areas covered by water from 4.01sqKm (0.11%) to 5.74sqKm (0.16%). Over the same period, the area of bare land decreased from 1.13sqKm (0.03%) to 0.19sqKm (0.005%). For land surface temperatures, in 2016 and 2024, the built-up areas had the highest temperatures, and in 2020, bare lands had the highest temperatures. The lowest temperatures for the three years were recorded in the vegetated areas. Over the study period, the overall temperature of vegetated areas, shrublands, water bodies, barelands and built-up areas decreased. Focused actions to decrease urban heat island, land use planning and continual surveillance are recommended for control of this phenomenon in the study area