Urbanization and Its Impact on Land Surface Temperature: A Case Study in Coastal Odisha, India

The East and South Eastern Coastal Plain Zone (ESECPZ) of Odisha, situated along the eastern coast of India, present a mosaic of urban and rural regions. The present study aims to estimate the land use land cover change and extent of urbanization in ESECPZ over the span of two decades, from 2000 to 2020. Multi-year Landsat data underwent supervised maximum likelihood classification to estimate LULC change. The ESECPZ of Odisha underwent substantial transformations during the study period. Forest cover decreased from 33.95% to 18.98%, agricultural land decreased from 24.98% to 21.84%, as against the settlements which surged from 21.52% to 39.67%. The maximum, minimum and average Land Surface Temperature (LST) showed steady increase during the period of study. About 5°C increase in the minimum LST range and 3°C increase in maximum LST were recorded. The increase in LST was attributed to the expansion of settlement areas and reduction in the vegetation cover due to population growth and urbanization. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI) showed gradual decreasing and increasing trends, respectively. Strong positive correlation was found between LST and NDBI while a strong negative correlation was found between LST and NDVI during all the years under study. This research provides valuable insights into the often-overlooked impacts of urbanization on (LST) and vegetation cover; the findings offer a positive outlook for the future, providing a foundation for forward-thinking initiatives aimed at addressing these environmental challenges.