Analysis of Thermal Environment by Urban Expansion using KOMPSAT and Landsat 8: Sejong City

Abstract

Urban population growth and consequent rapid urbanization involve some thermal environmental problems in the cities. Monitoring of thermal environments in urban areas such as hot spot analysis is required for effective actions to resolve these problems. This study selected 14 dongs and surrounding administrative districts of Sejong city as study areas and analyzed the characteristics of changes in surface temperature due to the urban expansion in the summer from 2013 to 2018. In the study, the surface temperature distributions in the study areas were plotted using surface temperature values from Landsat 8 and NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and NDBI (Normalized Difference Built-up Index) based on KOMPSAT 2/3 data, and the patterns of surface temperature changes with urban expansion were discussed using the estimated NDVI and NDBI. In particular, the distinct urbanization in the study areas were selected for case studies, and the cause of the changes in the hot spots in the regions was analyzed using high-resolution KOMPSAT images. This study results present that hot spots appeared in urbanized regions within the study areas, and it was plotted that the lower the NDVI values and the higher the NDBI values indicate the temperature values are high. The land surface temperature and satellite-based products were used to divide the study areas into continuously urbanized regions and rapidly urbanized regions and to identify the different characteristics depending on land covers. In the regions with distinct surface temperature changes by urbanization, the analysis using high-resolution KOMPSAT images as presented in this study could provide effective information for urban planning and policy utilization in the future. © 2019 Zaslavsky Publishing House. All Rights Reserved.