Spatio-temporal variations of land surface temperature using Landsat and MODIS: case study of the City of Tshwane, South Africa

Urbanisation is accelerating urban land use dynamics and this has a significant impact on land surface temperature (LST). Impervious surfaces and increase in air pollution has led to the increase in land surface temperature. This study reports on the use of geospatial technologies to monitor and quantify changes in LST using remotely sensed data in the City of Tshwane. Land surface temperature was retrieved using the winter and summer Landsat datasets for 1997 and 2015 and the MODIS data from 2000 to 2015. Land surface temperature was extracted using emissivity and satellite temperature as input parameters. The spatial and temporal variations in the LST were retrieved to show the effects of land cover change on LST. Change in LST was also analysed on different land cover types using transects across the study area. The study revealed an increase in land surface temperature between the years. It also showed that impervious surfaces had a higher LST compared to the non-impervious surfaces. The results revealed variations in LST between non-cropped and cropped agricultural areas, where the former had higher LST than the latter. Temporal trends revealed a notable increase in LST in the urban areas and there were some seasonal variations in LST with high LST values in summer and low values in winter. Cross-section analysis along transects revealed spatio-temporal thermal variations across different land cover types.