IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/nathaz/v120y2024i6d10.1007_s11069-024-06423-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Surface Urban Heat Islands changes analysis considering the effects of Covid-19 lockdown

Author

Listed:
  • Mostafa Nojavan

    (Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University)

  • Fatemeh Tabib Mahmoudi

    (Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University)

Abstract

In this research, the effects of Covid-19 lockdown and limitations on human activities were investigated on urban heat islands. The multi-temporal images which were taken by the Landsat-8 OLI sensor in the spring 2017–2021 were used. For investigating the effects of lockdown in the spring of 2020, the status of surface urban heat island (SUHI) maps during the same period of lockdown in the three years before and the following year have been examined. The proposed method in this paper consists of two main steps: (1) producing the SUHI maps using the rule-based analysis of land surface temperature (LST), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and land use/land cover (LULC) maps and (2) quantitatively analyzing the behavioral changes in the SUHIs during Covid-19 lockdown and comparing their changes with the previous and subsequent years. The obtained results of performing the proposed post-classification change detection confirm that applying the lockdown led to changes in the area percentage of high, medium and low SUHI classes by −17.61%, + 4.8% and +12.8%, respectively. Reducing the restrictions in 2021 caused an increase again in the area of high SUHI class by +18.87% and a decrease in the areas of medium and low classes. Change analysis considering LULC object types reveals that the area percentage of high SUHI class in built up is decreased by −7.48% in 2020 compared to its average of three years before lockdown (which is 6.1% more than decreasing in vegetation cover). In addition, the analysis of LST and NDVI obtained from Landsat-8 satellite images in the years 2017 to 2021 reveals that the Covid-19 lockdown applied in spring 2020 caused a decrease of −22.52 in LST values and an increase of +0.103 in NDVI compared to the average of its last three years.

Suggested Citation

  • Mostafa Nojavan & Fatemeh Tabib Mahmoudi, 2024. "Surface Urban Heat Islands changes analysis considering the effects of Covid-19 lockdown," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 120(6), pages 5129-5140, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:120:y:2024:i:6:d:10.1007_s11069-024-06423-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11069-024-06423-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-024-06423-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11069-024-06423-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:120:y:2024:i:6:d:10.1007_s11069-024-06423-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.