Spatio-temporal Distribution of Heat Index and Land Cover Change in Tropical Cities of Southeast Asia

Southeast Asian countries lie surrounding the equator line, which makes them have a tropical climate, and periodically suffer extreme heat events due to the combination of high temperature and high humidity. Jakarta, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and Manila are the four largest capital cities in Southeast Asia that we attempted to identify those patterns of the maximum heat index and land cover change during 2001 – 2016. To measure the heat index exposure, it used daily maximum temperature and relative humidity data from CHIRTS. To identify the land cover change employed satellite data for earth and climate measurement with moderate resolution, MODIS MCD12Q1. The result shows during 2001–2016, the maximum heat index trend in Jakarta, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur have positive value. Based on the monthly average maximum heat index of those four cities, the highest maximum heat index occurred from March to May. Moreover, the highest value of urban growth rate shows in line with increasing of heat index, which occurred in Jakarta. Otherwise, Manila had the lowest value of urban growth rate and did not experience significant increase in heat index.