Urban Heat Island Assessment in the Northeastern State Capitals in Brazil Using Sentinel-3 SLSTR Satellite Data

Rodrigo Fernandes (), Antonio Ferreira, Victor Nascimento (), Marcos Freitas and Jean Ometto
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Rodrigo Fernandes: Postgraduate Program in Remote Sensing (PPGSR), Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre 91501-970, RS, Brazil
Antonio Ferreira: Institute of Marine Sciences (LABOMAR), Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Fortaleza 60165-081, CE, Brazil
Victor Nascimento: Center for Engineering, Modeling, and Applied Social Sciences, Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Santo André 09210-580, SP, Brazil
Marcos Freitas: Postgraduate Program in Remote Sensing (PPGSR), Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre 91501-970, RS, Brazil
Jean Ometto: National Institute for Space Research (INPE), São José dos Campos 12227-010, SP, Brazil

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 11, 1-16

Abstract: The lack of a solid methodology defining urban and non-urban areas has hindered accurately estimating the Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI). This study addresses this issue by using the official national urban areas limit together with a surrounding areas classification to define three different reference classes: the urban adjacent (Ua), the future urban adjacent (FUa), and the peri-urban (PUa), consequently providing a more accurate SUHI estimation on the nine northeastern Brazilian capitals. The land surface temperature was obtained in this study using the Sentinel-3 satellite data for 2019 and 2020. Subsequently, the maximum and average SUHI and the complementary indexes, specifically the Urban Thermal Field Variation Index (UTFVI) and the Thermal Discomfort Index (TDI), were calculated. The UTFVI expresses how harmful the eco-environmental spaces are, with a very strong SUHI for three capitals. In addition, the TDI, with values between 24.6–28.8 °C, expresses the population’s thermal comfort, with six capitals showing a very hot TDI. These findings highlight the need for strategies to mitigate the effects of the SUHI and ensure the population’s thermal comfort. Therefore, this study provides a better SUHI understanding and comparison for the Brazilian northeastern region, which has diverse areas, populations, and demographic variations.

Keywords: Surface Urban Heat Island; northeastern region; Sentinel-3; eco-environmental spaces; thermal comfort (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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