Assessment of Karachi as an Urban Heat Island Threat through Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques | Proceedings of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences: B. Life and Environmental Sciences 2023

Muhammad Ali Lakhan Department of Environmental Sciences, Sindh Madressatul Islam University,Karachi,Pakistan

Ambreen Afzal National Institute of Maritime Affairs, Bahria University Karachi Campus, Pakistan

Samreen Riaz Ahmed Department of English, Sindh Madressatul Islam University,Karachi, 74000,Pakistan

Altaf Hussain Lahori Department of Environmental Sciences, Sindh Madressatul Islam University,Karachi,Pakistan

Muhammad Irfan Department of Geography, University of Karachi,,Pakistan

Salman Zubair Department of Geography, University of Karachi,,Pakistan

Anila Kausar Department of Geography, University of Karachi,,Pakistan

Shella Bano Department of Geology, University of Karachi,,Pakistan

Sergij Vambol Department of Occupational and Environmental Safety, National Technical University Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute, Kharkiv, Ukraine

Viola Vambol Department of Environmental Engineering and Geodesy, University of Life Sciences, Lublin, Poland; Department of Applied Ecology and Nature Management,National University «Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic», Poltava, Ukraine

Igor Mishchenko Department of Machine Components and Theory of Machines and Mechanisms, Kharkiv National Automobile and Highway University, Kharkiv, Ukraine

The present study aimed to assess the threat of transformation of Karachi into an Urban Heat Island, so, ambit was having calculated temperature, buildup areas, and normalized diference vegetation index through remote sensing and GIS techniques. The Landsat satellite data was used to diferentiate the temperature in diferent years. These images were processed through Envi 4.7, Erdas Imagine, and ArcGIS 10.3.1. The results revealed that the maximum temperature was found up to 30.52, 35.25, 33.60, 46.73 °C; the buildup area was 23, 34, 26, 45 %; the NDVI results showed ranging from 0.224-1, 0.07-0.43, 0.201-1, 0.29-0.7 during this years. The average spatial land use temperature and buildup area increased by 1.03 and 1.9 times from 1990 to 2019. The maximum NDVI was observed during 2019, because of heavy rainfall as a result which supports promoting more greenery. With an increase in the buildup area, a significant change in the temperature of the territory was simultaneously observed. Therefore, this indicates a major task for urban developers extenuating the subsequent urban heat island occurrence. That is, for the first time it is scientifically substantiated and confirmed by the results that when creating a city development plan, it is extremely important to exclude the possibility of the urban heat island occurrence through preliminary studies. The practical value of the study lies in sound recommendations, one of which is the need for future urban development to emphasize urban plantings, including vertical forests to prevent UHI occurrence in the area of Karachi city.