Land use/land cover change and its impact on surface urban heat island and urban thermal comfort in a metropolitan city

The increasing urban heat island intensity (UHII)is a matter of concern for the sustainable urban planning and maintaining urban thermal comfort in the metropolitan cities of developing countries like India. Therefore, in the current research, the land use/land cover (LU/LC) change and its impact on the surface UHI intensity (SUHII) and urban thermal comfort has been analyzed using Landsat datasets and geographically weighted regression (GWR) in Delhi metropolitan city. The result shows that the built-up area has increased from 315.18 to 720.24 sq. km in Delhi during 1991 to 2018 while other LU/LC types have declined. This has resulted in a substantial increase in LST and SUHII. The minimum, maximum and mean SUHII has increased by 1.26 °C, 4.6 °C and 1.18 °C during 1991 to 2018 and hence, the thermal comfort has declined in the city. The GWR analysis showed that the performance of GWR model was very good in showing the association between LU/LC and SUHII and the LU/LC pattern has significant impact on SUHII. The outcome of this research can be utilized for the formulation of SUHI mitigation strategies and maintaining urban thermal comfort in Delhi and cities with similar geographical conditions.