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Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI) Over Riverside Cities Along the Gangetic Plain of India

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Abstract

Rapid urbanisation in India has led to increased land use and energy demand, and the consequent uncontrolled development and increased human-induced activities are changing the micrometeorology and the local environment. Of late, the surface urban heat island (SUHI) effect is quite evident in India. It is known that river banks are where the most densely populated cities can be found around the globe, and the River Ganga (Ganges) in India is no exception. Town/cities located over the Gangetic Plain are witnessing a fast urbanisation, and associated perturbation is taking place in the micro/meso-scale meteorology/environment. Discussion about the influence of the river on the SUHI and dynamics over different cities along a single major river is needed, and therefore this study is undertaken to investigate the SUHI effect on riverside towns/cities over the Gangetic Plain, India. For this purpose, the observation data for the period of 2001–2014 from the Terra-MODIS satellite are used. The study quantifies the land surface temperature (LST) under different zones namely urban, suburban, and rural,  delineated on the basis of International Geosphere Biosphere Programme-Land Cover (IGBP-LC) products. The intensity and trend of SUHI are measured as an indicator of environmental and micro-climate change. The study found a prevailing regime of nighttime SUHI intensity (SUHII) as well as the daytime formation of SUHI. The interaction of the wind blowing from the river and other land cover to towns/cities was examined with respect to the SUHII of Kanpur and Patna and was found to be quite important.

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Raw data requested from the concerned sources/authority can only be used for research purposes, and the original files cannot be redistributed. The data used in charts may be provided only on special request, if in accordance with the journal’s policy and deemed to be necessary.

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Not Applicable. The research protocol involves the use of both GUI and CLI software.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the reviewers for their valuable suggestions which helped improve the quality of the manuscript. The authors are thankful to the University Grants Commission for providing funding support as Research Fellowship (NET-JRF/SRF) (Award no. 3528/(NET-JUNE 2015)) to the first author Archisman Barat for completing this work as a part of his PhD research. The computational facilities and software resources of the Central University of South Bihar are also gratefully acknowledged. We are also thankful to Giovanni, developed and maintained by the NASA GES DISC, for providing MAIRS datasets. Analyses and visualisations used in this study were produced with the Giovanni online data system, developed and maintained by the NASA GES DISC. Acknowledgement is also due to the MODIS mission scientists and associated NASA personnel and ECMWF for the production of the data used in this research work. Visualisation tools GrADS (http://www.cola.gmu.edu/grads/) and ColorBrewer (http://www.personal.psu.edu/cab38/ColorBrewer/ColorBrewer_instructions.html) are also acknowledged.

Funding

The first author Archisman Barat received a personal fellowship, UGC-NET-JRF/SRF, for his PhD research; no separate funding was received for the research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Science, Central University of South Bihar, SH-7, Gaya Panchanpur Road, Gaya, Bihar, 824236, India

    Archisman Barat, P. Parth Sarthi, Sunny Kumar & Ashutosh K. Sinha

  2. Numerical Weather Prediction Division, India Meteorological Department, Ministry of Earth Science, Lodhi Road, New Delhi, 110003, India

    Praveen Kumar

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Contributions

AB conducted the experiments, framed the methods and codes, plotted the illustrations and graphs, and acted as lead author of the manuscript. PPS framed the research problem, authored and refined the manuscript and supervised the entire research. SK contributed in obtaining and downloading data, graphics handling including graphics post-processing, and refined the manuscript. PK and AKS helped in code refinement for data extraction and R Coding for plots.

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Correspondence to P. Parth Sarthi.

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Barat, A., Parth Sarthi, P., Kumar, S. et al. Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI) Over Riverside Cities Along the Gangetic Plain of India. Pure Appl. Geophys. 178, 1477–1497 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-021-02701-6

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