Assessment of Urban Heat Island in Abuja Municipal Area Council FCT-Abuja

Abstract

Cities around the world are being faced with an undesirable increase in air temperature. This is indicated by an increase in non-porous, non-evaporating, highly thermal conductive surfaces which has replaced the vegetation biomass resulting to the formation of Urban Heat Island (UHI). This study employed geo-spatial techniques to determine UHI intensity in Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC). The Landsat images used were acquired from United States Geological Survey (USGS) for the period of 2003, 2013 and 2023. Supervised image classification using the maximum like-hood algorithm was utilized. The classifications were based on a +3°C temperature rise within a range depiction of UHI intensity across the study area, categorized into five distinct temperature ranges. The results obtained reveal that Land Surface Temperature (LST) for 2003 is within the ranges of 28° - 31°C and 31° - 34°C covering 52.77% and 36.75% of the total study area respectively. From 2013 and 2023; surface temperature within the range of 28⁰ to 34⁰C was seen to dominate the spatial extent of the study area. In 2003, 2013 and 2023 the northern part of the study area exhibits moderate to high UHI intensities. On the other hand, the southern outskirts show lower UHI intensities. The highest UHI intensities range from 0.62 to 0.975°C and the
moderate UHI intensity range from 0.391 to 0.619 °C. In order to reduce the occurrence of UHI in the study area, the study recommended sustainable urban development and increasing plant cover.