Bhagya Das, Himashree Bora and Mayuri Sarma
Abstract
Urbanization is a significant human activity that changes the Earthâs land landscape and the degree to which urbanization affects temperature variation depends critically on the built environment, population density and size, human activity, and socioeconomic characteristics of a metropolis. It has long been known that patterns of LULC and thermal characteristics are related, and this link can be used to examine how urbanization affects the urban thermal environment. This research uses a time series of Sentinel and Landsat satellite images to examine the traits of urban growth and how they affect the surface temperature of the land in Dibrugarh District of Assam, India, between 1993 and 2023. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) has been falling to the negative side, and less green, healthy vegetation has been recorded. Only the year 2003 recorded the availability of healthy vegetation ranging above 0.6 in the NDVI matrix. Due to deforestation and other anthropogenic activities, the average earth surface temperature went up to 0.96 °C from 1993 to 2023, with an average of 0.04 °C annually. These are the results of decreasing green vegetation. The LULC data show an increase of 177.155 km2 of built-up areas with a significant decrease in waterbodies and green vegetation. Although the climatic condition of the district is totally dominated by the monsoon, this temperature rise may cause problems in the near future and will impact agriculture and environmental sustainability.