Assessment of Urban Expansion and Its Effect on Surface Temperature in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis of Ghana – A Remote Sensing and GIS Approach

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2013-01-19
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The Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis of Ghana has been experiencing fast urban growth over the past decade. Forest and agriculture lands are being converted to uses concerned chiefly with population growth and increased economic activities. This research sought to assess urban expansion as well as its effects on surface temperature in the Metropolis using an integrated remote sensing and GIS approach. Several remote sensing techniques were used to carry out land-use-land-cover change detection using two multitemporal Landsat images of the years 1991 and 2008. This assisted in determining the changes that have taken place over the 17 year period. Urban growth pattern was also analysed using GIS techniques. The integrated use of remote sensing and GIS was subsequently employed to analyse the effect of urban expansion on surface temperature. Local climate change was also studied using multi-decade temperature data. The results showed that there has been significant urban growth in the study area with an annual rate of change of land cover of 4.06%. The results further showed that urban expansion was uneven in different parts of the metropolis and that there is also a negative correlation between the density of urban expansion and distance to a major road. The annual rate of increase in urban/built-up land was determined to be 4.65%. This urban development had increased surface radiant temperature in the study area by 4.3 oC in the urbanised areas. The results suggest that urban expansion has a certain effect on the monthly average surface temperature as well as the seasonal average temperature changes of the Metropolis. The integrate use of GIS and remote sensing has also been demonstrated to be an effective and efficient approach of analysing and monitoring urban expansion patterns and assessing its impact on surface temperature.
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A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Environmental Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Master Of Science Degree in Environmental Science, January-2013
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