Open AccessAn investigation of the relationship between surface albedo and urban cover types in a semi-arid region
Author(s) -
Mustafa N. Hamoodi,
Zainab R. Mahdi
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
iop conference series. materials science and engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1757-899X
pISSN - 1757-8981
DOI - 10.1088/1757-899x/1067/1/012021
Subject(s) - albedo (alchemy) , normalized difference vegetation index , arid , environmental science , urban heat island , land cover , linear correlation , atmospheric sciences , index (typography) , vegetation (pathology) , surface (topology) , vegetation index , correlation , remote sensing , mathematics , geography , meteorology , climate change , statistics , geology , land use , computer science , ecology , art , oceanography , pathology , world wide web , biology , paleontology , geometry , art history , medicine , performance art
Surface albedo, is a key parameter controlling the local energy budget, which in turn plays an important role in mitigating the effect of urban heat islands. This paper aimed to examine the relationship of surface albedo to major land cover categories, which include built-up areas, green covers, water bodies, and bare land. This study provides a new approach by using a 30 m spatial resolution of Landsat data over the study area, Baghdad, and relating surface albedo to the metrics of four biophysical parameters: Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Modified Normalised Difference Water Index (MNDWI), Normalised Difference Build-up Index (NDBI) and Normalised Difference Barren Index (NDBaI). A linear regression was generated to assess the correlation of surface albedo with these four biophysical parameters, and the results showed a strong positive correlation between surface albedo and both NDBI, and the NDBal (r = 0.62 and r = 0.95, respectively), and a moderate correlation with NDVI (r = 0.4). There was also a strong negative correlation of surface albedo with MNDWI (r = – 0.81).