ANALYSIS OF THE URBAN HEAT ISLAND OF THE CITY OF TREBINJE USING REMOTE SENSING PRODUCTS

Abstract

The phenomenon of urban heat islands is becoming increasingly pronounced and is one of the main reasons for the increase in air temperature in cities. The thermal regime of urban areas is different from peri-urban and rural areas, and is reflected in faster daytime heating and slower nighttime cooling. There are two main approaches to the study of urban heat islands - direct measurements of air temperature in the field and readings of temperatures from remote sensing products. The paper will analyze remote sensing products from the Landsat 8 satellite in order to determine differences in thermal characteristics of specific types of land use in the territory of the city of Trebinje. For the purposes of the analysis, a buffer zone was defined within a radius of 10 km from the central point of the city (geographical coordinates: 42.7112° N, 18.3436° E), which enabled the inclusion of urban, rural and natural areas. A total of 12 satellite images were collected and a time frame covering the summer months of 2024 (June 1 to August 31) was used. Given the sensitivity of thermal data to the presence of clouds, a cloud filter (CLOUD_COVER < 20%) was applied to ensure the quality of the input data. Additionally, a cloud mask and cloud shadows were implemented using the QA_PIXEL layer to remove contaminated pixels. The research results show that built-up areas have higher temperatures compared to other land use classes by more than 2°C. All analyses were conducted using open source software packages. The research results can be useful for various sectors such as public health, spatial planning, energy, water management, forestry and similar areas. In addition, the research results may contribute to future detailed studies aimed at defining local climate zones and thermal variations within them.