Surface Urban Heat Island and Thermal Profiles Using Digital Image Analysis of Cities in the El Bajío Industrial Corridor, Mexico, in 2020

Abstract

The Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI) effect refers to the difference in Land Surface Temperature (LST) between an urban area and its surrounding non-urban area. LST can provide detailed information on the variations in different types of land cover. This study, therefore, analyzes the behavior of LST and SUHIs in fourteen cities in the El Bajío Industrial Corridor, Mexico, using Landsat satellite images from 2020, with QGIS software. It utilizes thermal profiles to identify the land uses that intensify LST, which are essentially those that are anthropologically altered. The results show that the increases in LST and SUHI are more pronounced in cities with greater urban conglomeration, as well as those where there are few green areas and a sizeable industrial or mixed area, with few or no bodies of water. In addition, the increase in temperature in the SUHI is due to certain crops such as vegetables, red fruits, and basic grains such as corn, wheat, and sorghum that use fallow as part of agricultural practices, located around urban areas, which minimizes natural areas with arboreal vegetation.