Assessing thermal environmental changes of a semi-arid city using multi-temporal LCZ approach: a case study of Pune, India.

Authors

Labani Saha, Avdhut Patil, Amit Dhorde, Matthias Demuzere, Bhupendra Bahadur Singh

Published in

Environmental monitoring and assessment. Volume 197. Issue 9. Pages 1070. Sep 01, 2025. Epub Sep 01, 2025.

Abstract

The unprecedented growth of urbanization demands making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. The present study is the first multi-temporal local climate zones (LCZ) mapped in India. It is used to assess the spatio-temporal growth of the city over the past two decades and its impact on its thermal environment. Pune is a Class-I semi-arid city that witnessed rapid urban sprawl between 2005 and 2020 and still continues to grow. It was found that the built-up area increased from 31% to 68.3% while the natural land cover area decreased from 69 to 31.7%. As a result, LST decreased (increased) significantly at a rate of 0.2 ℃/year (0.1 ℃/year) during the day (night), respectively. Near the city center, where built-up density increases in an existing built-up area, both LST_day(night) increase around 0.1 ℃/year (0.03-0.06 ℃/year) in the day. However, when natural barren land turned into built-up, LST_day(night) decreased (increased) at more than 0.2 ℃/year (0.1 ℃/year), respectively. Barren lands converted to industrial areas are showing a significant increase in LST_day(night) at a rate of 0.4-0.8 ℃/year (0.12-0.16 ℃/year), respectively. The dried-up parts of the river show significantly increasing LST_day(night) at a rate of 0.3 ℃/year (0.03 ℃/year), respectively. We also note that plantation programs do indicate a cooling effect. Overall, the changes in LST are dependent on the type of LCZ and its transformation into different categories. The results from this case indicate that peripheral zones of the city are experiencing rapid and significant changes and have implications for policy and city planning.

PMID:
40888962
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 02 Sep 2025.

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