Henry O. Olayiwola, Emmanuel C. Okogbue, Ifeoluwa A. Balogun, Akinleye H. Folorunsho, Damilola D. Oladeji and Jeffrey B. Basara
The rapid pace of urbanization in many cities of the world has led to the transformation of natural landscapes into artificial surfaces with considerable effects on the environment. It has occasioned inadvertent alterations in surface thermal characteristics, local and regional climate and the geophysical conditions of the urban environment. Increasing rates of urbanization with continuous alterations on the natural surface features are expected to continue with its attendant problems in the near and far future. Thus, this study adopted geospatial techniques using Landsat observed TM, ETM+ and TIRS/OLI data for the years 1984, 2000 and 2018 to investigate the spatial and temporal variation in Land Surface Temperature (LST) associated with urbanization processes in the city of Ibadan, Nigeria. An attempt was made to project future surface thermal changes by simulating LSTs for 2028, 2038 and 2048, using the Cellular Automata Markov (CA-Markov) Model and a stepwise multiple regression analyses model. A quantitative analysis of the past and future LST impacts of urban land cover change was carried out. The simulations showed that the temperature values ranged between 24.65°C–39.40°C in 2028, 25.31°C-42.52°C in 2038 and 25.89°C–44.21°C in 2048. Notable increases in the simulated LST in the urban areas, particularly the city centres were observed to be relatively higher when compared with past years. The rural and suburban areas are experiencing rapid urbanization, which led to transitions from low and medium temperatures to relatively higher projected temperatures in the future years.