Impact of Covid19 lockdown on the urban surface ecological surface

Abstract

An urban ecosystem’s ecological structure and functions can be assessed through Urban Surface Ecological Status (USES). USES are affected by human activities and environmental processes. Modeling the USES is crucial for urban environmental sustainability especially in developing countries like Uganda . The COVID-19 pandemic caused negative impacts on socioeconomic activities, however, there was a reduction in human pressures on the environment. This study aims to assess the effects of the lockdown on the USES in Kampala, Uganda,during different lockdown phases (phases I, II and III). The land surface temperature (LST),normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and wetness and normalized difference soil index(NDSI) were assessed. The USES was developed by combining all of the biophysical parameters using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The results showed that there was a substantial USES spatial variability in Kampala. During lockdown in phase III, the USES in fair and poor sustainability areas reduced from 16% (2019) to 11% (2020), and from 10% (2019) to 7% (2020), respectively and an increase in the percentages was seen during post lockdown in 2021. Our results also showed that the USES mean value was 1.39 in 2019 but reached 1.27 during the lockdown period in 2020 and slightly increased to 1.28(2021) during post lockdown.The poor USES area was mainly concentrated in built-up areas (with high LST and NDSI) and the good USES was concentrated in areas with vegetation and water(with high NDVI and wetness). The modeling of USES is crucial in different biophysical environmental conditions, and they can be very helpful for the assessment of urban sustainability.