Assessing the effect of Urbanisation on temperature change in Arua District.

Abstract

Arua municipality’s population grew fast which led to emergence of unplanned urban settlements and urban sprawl. The associated effect with this is higher temperatures due to the elevated prevalence of heat-absorbing and emitting surfaces and additional heat production. This study investigated the effects of LC changes on the LSTs for Arua municipality. Using Landsat imagery, the study first detected the LC and LC changes using the K-means unsupervised classification method and derived the LSTs for the years 2010, 2015, and 2020. The urban built up area in Arua municipality increased by 20.5% between 2010 and 2020. During this period, the average LSTs for the LC classes increased as well, with bare soil and built-up area having the highest LST in the respective order. The study also showed a positive correlation between the increasing area in Urban built up areas and the LSTs. The study therefore concluded with some recommendations that sustainable LC and land use policies be implemented and that for accurate results, ground measurements for the LSTs be taken within the municipality.