Land Use / Land Cover Transformation Impact on Land Surface Temperature and Moisture in a Peri-Urban Area in the Western Nile Delta, Egypt

Bakr, Noura; Moharam, Ihab Morsi; Yehia, Haytham Mohamed

doi:10.21608/ejss.2025.376156.2117

Land Use / Land Cover Transformation Impact on Land Surface Temperature and Moisture in a Peri-Urban Area in the Western Nile Delta, Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Soils and Water Use Dept., Agricultural and Biological Research Institute, National Research Centre (NRC), Giza 12622, Egypt

² Soil, Water and Environment Research Institute (SWERI), Agricultural Research Center (ARC), Giza 12619, Egypt

10.21608/ejss.2025.376156.2117

Abstract

The transformation of land use and land cover (LULC) on the land surface can be commonly be detected and monitored using multi-temporal satellite images. Likewise, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the land surface temperature (LST), the soil moisture index (SMI), and their temporal changes can also be estimated via remotely sensed data. The current research detected the LULC, NDVI, LST, and SMI and monitored their changes in 1984 and 2021 in the Kafr Eldwwar area, one of the peri-urban areas in the north-western proportion of the Nile Delta, Egypt. Six Landsat satellite images of 1984, 1998, 2002, 2010, 2016, and 2021 were utilized for LULC identification via maximum likelihood classifier, NDVI analysis using red and infrared bands, and LST determination based on the thermal bands and NDVI. Besides, the SMI was estimated based on the LST dataset. Three general LULC classes were recognized in the study area: vegetated land, non-vegetated (urban/bare) areas, and water bodies. The LULC classification results revealed that the agricultural land decreased from approximately 76% in 1984 to around 69% in 2021. Conversely, the area coverage of urban/bare areas increased from about 24 to 29% in 1984 and 2021, respectively. The LST results indicated that the urban/bare areas exhibit the highest temperature with a mean average of up to 37 °C. The vegetated land had a mean temperature between 29 and 34 °C during the studied period of 1984-2021. Finally, the SMI results indicated that 40-80% was a dominant SMI value in the study area over the assigned period for the three LULC classes. The dominant SMI for vegetated land ranged from 60 to 75%, whereas the SMI for urban/bare areas ranged from 40 to 60%. The study confirmed the effectiveness of the remotely sensed data in providing reliable estimating for different natural phenomena such as LST and SMI.

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