Impact of Land Use Changes on the Surface Temperature Distribution of Area Surrounding the National Botanic Garden, Shah Alam

Urban areas are rapidly developed to accommodate the demand for residential, commercial and institutional purposes. These circumstances initiate to clear most of vegetated areas in the city. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of land use changes on the surface temperature of National Botanic Garden, Shah Alam and the surrounding areas. Specific objectives are to generate land use/land cover maps of two different dates, to generate the land surface temperature maps and to investigate the impact of land use changes of the surface temperature distribution of the study area. Remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS) techniques are used to detect the land use changes and its impact on the land surface temperature (LST). Land use maps of two different dates are derived from Landsat images of 1991 and 2001. Results obtained have shown that the LST of different land use differ significantly. This study demonstrates that rapid urban growth significantly decreases the vegetated areas, hence increased the surface temperature and modified the urban microclimate.