Evaluating the spatial distribution and the intensity of urban heat island using remote sensing, case study of Isfahan city in Iran

In recent years, urbanization has widely been developed and resulted in great loss of natural resources on earth and many other consequences such as temperature rise which exposes the cities to a phenomenon called heat island. Urban heat island (UHI) can be identified and analyzed by thermal remote sensing. In the present study, satellite images of Landsat 7 ETM + (1999 and 2006) and Landsat 8 (2013 and 2016) were used to retrieve the land surface temperature (LST) of Isfahan in Iran by means of the mono-window algorithm. Analysis of thermal levels showed an increase in the minimum temperature of 2016 compared to 1999. Furthermore, the results revealed that the heat island ratio (URI) in Isfahan in four different years followed a rising trend, moving from 0.16 in 1999 to 0.3 in 2016. The findings of this study indicated that the areas influenced by UHI are often in northern and southern parts of the city where vegetation cover is very sparse, the land is arid, and industrialization and regional settlements are booming.