Published Paper Details:

Land Cover Indices gives information about the thermal behavior of land surfaces and when it coincide with sensible heat storage (?QS) then it forms urban heat island which in turn measure in its intensity. The current study analyzed the effects of land cover indices in the Kanpur Metropolis, which is located over the Indo Gangetic Plains but now a portion of the Kanpur Nagar District and has the Yamuna river as its southern boundary due to its urban sprawl. The land cover indices such as Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI), Normalized Difference Barren index (NDBaI), Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI), Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) affects Urban Heat Island (UHI) intensity. These land cover indices and Urban Heat Island (UHI) intensity has been calculated using data from Landsat 5, 7, and 8 for the years 1991, 2001, 2011, and 2021respectively for this region using projection WGS_1984_UTM_Zone_44N. A correlation between UHI Intensity and various land cover indices has also been evaluated, and it reveals that NDBI and NDBaI have a positive impact on UHI Intensity while MNDWI, NDVI, and SAVI have a negative impact. The UHI intensity is positively correlated with NDBaI and NDBI according to the best fit curve with a logarithmic trendline, but it is negatively correlated with MNDWI, NDVI, and SAVI. The significance level (p) for each land cover index was also evaluated, and in the majority of cases, a satisfactory p value of <.05 was discovered. The analysis demonstrates that while the land cover indices associated with vegetation density the Urban Heat Island Intensity has decreased in the region while indices associated with built-up such as NDBI, the UHI Intensity has increased. The study can offer insightful information about the policy-making process for urban spatial planning and strategies to mitigate UHI Intensity.