Spatio-temporal Variability of Landuse Landcover and its Impact on Land Surface Temperature in Zaria Metropolis, Nigeria

This paper assessed the spatio-temporal variability of land use land cover (LULC) and its impact on Land Surface Temperature (LST) in Zaria and environs. Multi-temporal Landsat data; Landsat 5TM, 7ETM+ and 8OLI of 1988, 2003 and 2018, respectively, at an interval of 15 years were obtained. These data were processed and classified into various classes using the supervised classification. It was also used to determine the LST of the area. The results of the classification revealed that, apart from built-up area which increased consistently from 15.353 km2 in 1988 to 32.8623km2 in 2018, all other LULC decreased within the study period. The LST ranges from 1.5 to 35.9ºC across the study period. The relationship between LULC and LST was investigated and result showed that LST had positive correlation of 0.608 with built-up area indicating that LST increased with increase in built-up areas. However, dense vegetation, light vegetation and bare land had negative correlations of -0.976, -0.851 and -0.708, respectively, with LST indicating that LST increase with decrease in vegetation and bare land. The implication of this unprecedented changes is the resulting  environmental and climatic problems such as urban heat island and desertification which have become very common in the study area. It was suggested that the LULC of Zaria metropolis should be controlled and afforestation be encouraged to enhance a healthy living condition of the area. Keywords: Land Surface Temperature, Land Use Land Cover Change, Landsa