Assessment of Surface Urban Heat Island over Bengaluru City in India

The population approaching 14 million in the Bengaluru's metropolitan area in South India and is grappling with various environmental challenges like poor urban planning, including unchecked urbanization, air pollution, water scarcity, and waste management issues etc. The impact of climate change (CC) is also well observed in the urban Bengaluru resulting in the local Urban Heat Island (UHI). The interaction between local UHI and global CC creates challenges to human health, wellbeing and development. This study uses MODIS-Aqua Land Surface Temperature (LST) data for a decade (i.e., 2015-2024) to examine the UHI effect over the city. Climatological analysis of night time LST shows an average annual temperature-increasing trend between the urban Bengaluru and its neighboring suburbs and villages. This difference is computed at monthly scale and the fluctuations are being estimated using the satellite and validated against the ground observations. The Land use Land cover estimation are also linked to the UHI effect and the role of vegetation cover in the LST distribution is also quantified and it indicates the direct impact. This study will help in understanding the LST dynamics in the UHI effect over a rapidly urbanization city and can be used in the climate projection studies offering a ways to guide the urban planners, disaster managers and policy makers.