Impacts of Urbanization on Land Surface Temperature and Water Quality

Land surface temperature (LST) derived from satellite remotely sensed thermal infrared imagery is a key variable to understand the impacts of urbanization‐induced land‐use and land‐cover (LULC) changes. This chapter introduces two case studies to examine the impact of LULC changes on LST and on surface water quality, respectively. First, a Time Series Land Surface Temperature data set from 507 Landsat Thematic Mapper/Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus images of Atlanta, Georgia, between 1984 and 2011, investigated the impact of urban LULC changes on temporal thermal characteristics by breaking down the time‐series observations into temporally homogenous segments. Secondly, future land‐use/planning scenarios for the Des Plaines River watershed in the Chicago metropolitan area are developed in order to evaluate the response of total suspended solids to the combined impacts of future land‐use and climate scenarios.