A CORRELATION ANALYSIS OF LAND SURFACE TEMPERATURE AND EVAPOTRANSPIRATION IN AN URBAN SETTING

Abstract. Urbanisation is found to increase the Land Surface Temperature (LST), which results in the formation of Urban Heat Islands (UHI). This effect is a result of the natural land cover being replaced with impermeable surfaces like buildings, roads, and pavements, which absorb and hold onto heat more. As a result, metropolitan regions frequently experience substantially hotter temperatures than their nearby rural counterparts, especially during heat waves. This arises partly due to reduction in Actual Evapotranspiration (AET). AET and LST have a close relationship. AET rates are greatly influenced by the amount of vegetation and their transpiration capacity, which in turn can have an influence on LST in urban regions. The type of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) has a significant impact on how LST affects the interchange of energy between the earth's surface and the atmosphere. Vegetation AET has a huge potential to reduce both temperatures. The temperature of a water body is lower than that of the nearby urban. The objective of this research is to determine the variation in AET and LST with regards to varying types of land cover by finding correlation between them. The spatio-temporal analysis is done for the summer and winter season of 2020. The correlation is studied between LST and AET for each land cover class and for both seasons for 2020 and results are plotted. The green areas and lakes of the city showed a higher AET and lower LST, whereas the built environment behaved in just the opposite manner. It can be inferred that it is essential to comprehend the local context to effectively determine the relationship between LST and AET in a particular scenario.