The Relationship Between Land Cover/Use Changes and Land Surface Temperature using Object-Oriented Classification and Split-Window Algorithm in Shooshtar Township

Human activities such as land-use changes have a significant effect on the Earth’s surface temperature and the creation of heat islands. This study aimed to investigate the impact of land-use changes on the temporal-spatial pattern of the surface temperatures and heat islands in Shooshtar township between 2002 to 2020. First, the Landsat 2002, 2013, and 2020 images were classified using object-oriented processing methods, and then the Earth surface temperature was extracted by the split-window algorithm. Having measured the temporal-spatial changes in the surface temperature and the heat islands, the indices NDVI, UHII, and UHIII were implemented. The results showed an increase in Built-up areas as well as Barrenlands by 21895.40 and 26761.04 hectares, individually. By contrast, the Vegetation cover and Waterbodies decreased down to 43790.79 and 4865.64 hectares, respectively. According to the results, the maximum temperatures index revealed an uptrend in the temperature of all the landuses; there has been a constant increase with an amount of 7.40, 7.42, 6.82, and 6.87 degrees Celsius in the temperatures of the landuses the Vegetation cover, Barrenlands, Built-ups, and Waterbodies, respectively, during the 2002-2020 study period. The UHII and UHIII indices showed that the low land-cover class had a higher temperature than the classes with medium and large land-covers. Furthermore, the heat islands were distinguishably formed by 2013 and 2020 most in the northern, southeastern, and northeastern areas of Shooshtar township.