Study on Response of Land Surface Temperature to Land Use and Land Cover Change Using Remote Sensing Data:A case on Urumqi,China

Rapid urban expansion has significant impact on urban environment.Study on response of land surface temperature to land use and land cover change(LUCC) using remote sensing data is an effective way to monitor and evaluate the impact of urbanization on urban environment.In this paper,we took an oasis city in arid region-Urumqi City as an example,and retrieved land surface temperature and detected land use/cover change(LUCC) and urban expansion of the study area by integrating remote sensing and geographic information systems.Landsat TM images of 1990 and 2009 were used to acquire the land use and land cover data.The single thermal infrared band was used to retrieve the land surface temperature.Based on the combining analysis of LUCC and the retrieved land surface temperature,response of land surface temperature to urbanization was studied quantitatively.Results showed that during the period from 1990 to 2009,land use and land cover of Urumqi experienced a dramatic variation,rapid urban expansion happened,and the increasing rate of urban construction area reached to 44.73%,and this urban development had raised land surface temperature by about 6 ℃.Distribution of the areas with raising temperature is consistent with the enlarged urban regions,which reveals that the urban development has raised the land surface temperature.