Author(s): Taofeeq Sholagberu Abdulkadir, Muhammad Raza Ul Mustafa, Wan Yusof Khamaruzaman, Ahmad Mustafa Hashim
Linked Author(s): Muhammad Raza Ul Mustafa
Keywords: Land Surface Temperature (LST), terrain characteristics, NDVI, spatial, Landsat-8
Abstract: Monitoring of land surface information through application of remote sensing techniques has been the subject of research globally as it provides significant spatial and temporal distribution of some ecological parameters such as land surface temperature (LST), land cover, soil moisture, vegetation, water bodies, etc. However, LST plays important roles in environmental processes including hydrology and climate. Thus, assessing its spatial distribution in a watershed will be useful for quantifying the effects of water deficit in the ecosystems. Some of the previous studies examines the influence of land use/cover, soil moisture and elevation on LST. This present study investigates the influence of terrain characteristics (such as slope, elevation, aspect and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) on LST in a mountainous area of Cameron Highlands, Malaysia using remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques. The spatial distributions of LST have been retrieved from thermal infrared sensors of atmospherically corrected Landsat-8 image and terrain features were derived from digital elevation model (DEM). The outcomes of study give the spatial distribution of LST which ranges from 15. 95?C to 32. 64?C with an average value of 23. 30?C and terrain characteristics. The highest average LST values of 23. 41 ?C and 24. 38 ?C are obtained at a slope range of 20�35o and elevation range of 202�725m respectively. More so, areas with the lowest NDVI values have the highest LST values. This may be as a result of land use changes that expose the earth surface in those areas. North, Northeast, East and Northwest directions of terrain's aspect have slightly higher average LST values than other directions. Variability in the LST values in different terrain feature classes shows that LST distribution was affected by slope, elevation, aspect and NDVI. The study provides an insight into thermal response of different locations in mountainous areas for sustainable ecosystem management
Year: 2017