Abstract:
The rapid urbanization and population growth over the past three to four decades has
caused a change in the Land use and land cover patterns in the twin cities of Pakistan
(Islamabad and Rawalpindi). This in turn has led to a change in land surface temperatures.
The knowledge of various man-made phenomena on the surface of the earth is improved
through the study of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) changes and their patterns. As
Pakistan is in the top ten countries that are going to be affected by climate change, thus
there is an urgent need to monitor the environment to make better decisions. The area of
interest in this study is the city of Islamabad (33.7205° N, 73.0405° E) and Rawalpindi
(33.5651° N, 73.0169° E). The area was selected for the study because it has seen drastic
changes since the start of the 21st century. The time period of 4 decades was taken, from
1990 to 2021, and calculations were done after every decade. The satellite imagery of the
study area was taken from the United States Geographical Survey (USGS) for each decade.
LANDSAT 4-5 imagery was used for the year 1990 to 2010 and for the year 2021
LANDSAT 8 imagery was used. The study focuses on changes in the Land Cover Changes
and also how these changes correspond with the changes in the temperature over the years.
Land Use and Land Cover were analyzed by a supervised classification system. For Land
Surface Temperature, Thermal, Red, and Infra-Red bands were used to calculate the
changes in temperature. The results of Land Cover changes were found, and the maximum
change was observed in urbanization followed by barren, vegetation, water, and then forest.
A trend of decreasing lower temperature and increasing higher temperature was observed,
where net changes of 13.72, and 11.81 in degree centigrade were analyzed respectively.
These changes are crucial for any urban city development and for climate change study,
and they also provide baseline information for decisions and policymakers.
