ABSTRACT
During last few decades, the Kuttanad district of Kerala, India, experienced exponential urban expansion. This has several environmental impacts, the major ones being the decrease in water bodies and the rise in land surface temperature (LST). The main objective of this study was to understand the impact of urbanization on surface temperature and water bodies. Landsat 5 data of February 10, 2005, and Landsat 8 data of February 11, 2014, were used in this study. To validate the classification result for water bodies, the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) was performed. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index and the LST were also computed to quantify the impact on vegetation spread and temperature change. Results indicated that the area covered by water bodies decreased from 2005 to 2014. Likewise, a prominent increase in the area occupied by built up was noted from 2005 to 2014. The overall vegetation spread was found to be increasing as a result of the different agricultural practices. The LST was found to be low in the year 2014 due to the increase in vegetation cover. However, local analysis indicated that the LST surrounding the dense built-up region was high as compared to that of the less dense built-up area.
