Relation of land surface temperature with different vegetation indices using multi-temporal remote sensing data in Sahiwal region, Pakistan

Abstract At the global and regional scales, green vegetation cover has the ability to affect the climate and land surface fluxes. Climate is an important factor which plays an important role in vegetation cover. This research aimed to study the changes in land cover and relation of different vegetation indices with temperature using multi-temporal satellite data in Sahiwal region, Pakistan. Supervised classification method (maximum likelihood algorithm) was used to achieve the land cover classification based on ground-truthing. Our research denoted that during the last 24 years, almost 24,773.1 ha (2.43%) of vegetation area has been converted to roads and built-up areas. The built-up area increased in coverage from 43,255.54 ha (4.24%) from 1998 to 2022 in study area. Average land surface temperature (LST) values were calculated at 16.6 °C and 35.15 °C for winter and summer season, respectively. In Sahiwal region, the average RVI, DVI, TVI, EVI, NDVI and SAVI values were noted as 0.19, 0.21, 0.26, 0.28, 0.30 and 0.25 respectively. For vegetation indices and LST relation, statistical linear regression analysis indicated that kappa coefficient values were R 2 = 0.79 for RVI, 0.75 for DVI, 0.78 for DVI, 0.81 for EVI, 0.83 for NDVI and 0.80 for SAVI related with LST. The remote sensing (RS) technology can be used to monitor changes in vegetation indices values over time, providing valuable information for sustainable land use management. Even though the findings on land cover provide significant references for reasoned and optimal use of land resources through policy implications.