Relationship between soil cover type and surface temperature

Abstract

Microclimates are sensitive to surface cover type. Changes in vegetation cover modify energy distribution patterns, strongly impacting essential variables such as temperature and relative humidity. Regions with high vegetal cover density channel much of the energy through evapotranspiration, thus promoting a tremendous thermo-hydroregulating effect on the environment. The mapping of climatological variables through remote sensing and geoprocessing techniques can help in dimensioning this phenomenon and has become a popular technique due to the high availability of data from orbital satellite images and lower cost. This work uses images from the Landsat 8 satellite from the United States Geological Survey to map vegetation, urbanization and surface temperature in the urban area of Coari, Amazonas - Brazil in two distinct periods (2015 and 2017), seeking a quantitative evaluation of the influence of vegetation and urbanization on the values of this temperature. This study also attempts to estimate the importance of the atmospheric correction for this estimate and the difference in general climate conditions between the dates. The research shows that there is a considerable influence of vegetation on temperature control, despite higher reflective capacity (albedo) of urbanized areas. The urbanized regions showed temperatures up to 7°C higher than densely vegetated regions. Atmospheric correction in the temperature estimation is crucial, otherwise values can be severely underestimated. Temperatures in 2015 were substantially higher on soil regions, but lower in the water bodies, which is counterintuitive. Finally, this study may suggest a greater commitment of the public power in the promotion of policies aimed at the afforestation and vegetation of urban centers.

Keywords:
Remote sensing; Temperature mapping; Urbanization; Coari - AM