The Impacts of Landscape Changes on Annual Mean Land Surface Temperature in the Tropical Mountain City of Sri Lanka: A Case Study of Nuwara Eliya (1996–2017)

Manjula Ranagalage, Yuji Murayama, Dissanayake Dmslb and Matamyo Simwanda
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Manjula Ranagalage: Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1, Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8572, Japan
Yuji Murayama: Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1, Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8572, Japan
Dissanayake Dmslb: Department of Environmental Management, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka, Mihintale 50300, Sri Lanka
Matamyo Simwanda: Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, School of Natural Resources, Copperbelt University, P.O. Box 21692, Kitwe 10101, Zambia

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 19, 1-26

Abstract: Although urbanization has contributed to improving living conditions, it has had negative impacts on the natural environment in urbanized areas. Urbanization has changed the urban landscape and resulted in increasing land surface temperature (LST). Thus, studies related to LST in various urban environments have become popular. However, there are few LST studies focusing on mountain landscapes (i.e., hill stations). Therefore, this study investigated the changes in the landscape and their impacts on LST intensity (LSTI) in the tropical mountain city of Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka. The study utilized annual median temperatures extracted from Landsat data collected from 1996 to 2017 based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) interface. The fractions of built-up (BL), forested (FL) and agricultural (AL) land, were calculated using land use and cover maps based on urban–rural zone (URZ) analysis. The urban–rural margin was demarcated based on the fractions of BL (<10%), and LSTI that were measured using the mean LST difference in the urban–rural zone. Besides, the mixture of land-use types was calculated using the AL/FL and BL/FL fraction ratios, and grid-based density analysis. The results revealed that the BL in all URZs rapidly developed, while AL decreased during the period 1996 to 2017. There was a minimal change in the forest area of the Nuwara Eliya owing to the government’s forest preservation policies. The mean temperature of the study area increased by 2.1 °C from 1996 to 2017. The magnitude of mean LST between urban–rural zones also increased from 1.0 °C (1996) to 3.5 °C (2017). The results also showed that mean LST was positively correlated with the increase and decrease of the BL/FL and AL/FL fraction ratios, respectively. The grid-based analysis showed an increasing, positive relationship between mean LST and density of BL. This indicated that BL density had been a crucial element in increasing LST in the study area. The results of this study will be a useful indicator to introduce improved landscape and urban planning in the future to minimize the negative impact of LST on urban sustainability.

Keywords: land use and cover; land surface temperature; built-up land; agricultural land; gradient analysis; Nuwara Eliya; Sri Lanka (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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