Analysis of the spatial and temporal variations in the thermal patterns of the City of Arak in Iran using satellite image processing

Due to the kind of its usage in a relatively long period, the analysis of temperature levels of modern cities is among the most important subjects that can be considered in the field of geography and environment, and its results can be used in promoting the science and solving the problems of today’s societies. The effect of temperature on climate, especially in metropolises, is one of the crucial indexes of this procedure. The rise in the land surface temperature, which is an indicator of the heat intensity, is among the important elements for identifying the changes in weather. The emergence of heat in cities is one of the most known forms of such changes. Urban heat islands are indicated by a temperature inversion and annoying temperatures throughout winters and summers. The temperature of some cities or urban areas has remarkably grown compared to the suburbs or rural areas around them. This phenomenon, called urban heat island, has caused numerous problems. The term “heat island” was proposed by Havard for the first time almost a century ago in 1833 (Sook, 2004: 10). Afterward, numerous studies were carried out in the large and industrialized cities of the world, whose results demonstrated that civilization has exerted significant changes in the meteorological parameters and properties of the ground surface, and consequently, remarkable variations in local climate (Mousavi Baygi et al., 2012: 36).

The present research is aimed at identifying the places with high heat, which have created the known thermal patterns in the city of Arak in Iran. Assessment of the spatial-temporal variations of the urban heat islands can be used as a critical component in the management strategies of natural resources and environmental changes, whose results can be useful for environmental, regional, and urban planners.

The studied area, Arak, is the capital of the Markazi Province in Iran, with an area of 304.8 km2 at 1755 m above mean sea level. The city has temperate weather tending to cold and semi-arid. According to enactment in 2011, Arak has five municipal districts.
The research method was analytical-statistical, and an effort was made to evaluate the relationship between land surface temperature and land cover of the city. In order to evaluate the development of hot places in Arak and determine its urban thermal patterns and heat islands in the long term, the data of the satellite images of the Landsat scanners 4, 5, 7, and 8, including the data of the TM scanners of Landsat’s 4 and 5, Landsat 7 (+ETM), and Landsat 8 (OLI/TIRS), during the period 1985-2017 were used. These images include two sets of reflective spectral and thermal bands. The thermal bands were used to identify the surface temperature and thermal islands, and the reflective bands were employed to apply the indexes of image processing. The data of the TM, +ETM, and OLI/TIRS scanners were provided in the bands 6, 8, and 11, respectively. The data of the thermal band 6 of Landsats 5 and 7 with wavelengths of 10.40-12.5 micrometers and the band 10 of Landsat 8 with wavelengths of 10.60-11.19 micrometers were used to calculate the surface temperature distribution patterns of Arak. The bands 3 and 4 of Landsats 5 and 7, along with bands 4 and 5 of Landsat 8, were also utilized to calculate the NDVI index (NASA, 2014). In the global imaging system, the images of the area of Arak exist in the 165th And 36th row.
Generally, the following steps were taken to analyze the urban heat islands of Arak:
Calculation of LST and spectral radiance
Conversion of the calculated radiation to Kelvin temperature
Calculation of the temperature levels of five districts of Arak
Calculation of the density percentage of the fourth level of temperature (hot points of the city)
The minimum, maximum, and average temperatures of Arak
Calculation of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)
Calculation of the urban thermal field variance index (UTFVI)

Evaluation of the land surface temperature changes and patterns
The analysis of the vegetation variations demonstrated that depending on different uses of urban lands, vegetation is in accordance with the temperature level. Generally, the low temperature in the southwest of the city, which was observed in the land surface temperature maps, is caused by the gardens of the cities of Senejan and Karahroud. The eastern and southeastern parts of district 1, which has industrial uses, streets with heavy traffic, and accumulation of uses, and the north of the city, i.e., the north of district 3 with the accumulation of residential uses and heavy traffics, have higher temperatures. Generally, during the studied period on vegetation, all areas having this use, except for the northwestern part, had considerable changes. Most of the vegetation in the studied period was concentrated in districts 4 and 5, which included the gardens of Senejan and Karahroud. However, other parts of the city, including the northwest and, to some extent, the city center and district 1, whose vegetation includes several parks and green spaces, show decreasing changes in temperature. Based on the results obtained from evaluating the urban thermal field variance index (UTFV) of Arak, using 20 land surface temperature (LST) maps and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), obtained from Landsat satellite, (TM), (ETM+), (OLI/TRS), the very hot temperature level of Arak was widely observed mostly in the north, northeast, east, and southeast of district 1, north and northwest of district 3, west and southwest of district 2, and district 5.

The evaluation of the LST maps to identify the hot points and urban thermal patterns revealed that most of the hot points are located in the areas with idle lands in the suburbs. These lands are mostly observed in the recently developed areas of the suburbs, including districts 1 and 3. Inside the city, most of the hot places conform to the formation of thermal patterns close to industrial towns, streets with heavy traffic and high pollution, and residential areas with dense and urban decay. The largest area of the third temperature level is observed in district 1 due to the presence of industrial towns, dense residential towns, cultural and governmental organizations, heavy traffics in the streets, the northern and southern belts in the district, and idle lands in the north and east of the district. The presence of the industrial towns and factories in the city of Arak, especially in district 1, is one of the effective factors in increasing the heat and creating thermal patterns. The thermal patterns in district 1 had the highest intensity in 1988/09/08 and 2017/01/08 during the studied period.