Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Urban Heat Island studies: Current status in India and a comparison with the International studies

  • Published:
Journal of Earth System Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Urbanization has resulted in many critical issues like increase in pollution levels, sudden climatic changes and the rise of temperature in the urban area, that is the formation of Urban Heat Islands (UHI). As the density of population rises, most of the land areas are being converted into cities and cities grows very rapidly. Due to the UHI effect, the cities are becoming hotter day by day. In India, all the metropolitan cities are victims of UHI effect and the severity of heat formation, necessitates research in this area. The present paper evaluates the trends of UHI studies in Indian cities and its out reach till 2018. Heat Island classification, methods of studying UHI in India and their limitation are discussed. Eventually a comparison of new trends of UHI studies in the world and where India lacks its growth in UHI research are included in this paper. One of the findings is that numerical modelling studies are very limited in India in this field and more focus in this area is required.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1
Figure 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Ahmad S, Matloob H, Warsi T R and Khan M D A 2011 The evaluation of heat island effect in various cities in Ganga–Yamuna Doab region using MODIS land surface temperature product; Asian J. Environ. Sci. 6(2) 185–190.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ali Gazi M A and Mondal I 2018 Urban Heat Island and its effect on Dweller of Kolkata Metropolitan area using geospatial techniques; Int. J. Comput. Sci. Eng. 6 741–753.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ambinakudige S 2011 Remote sensing of land cover’s effect on surface temperatures: A case study of the urban heat Island in Bangalore, India; Applied GIS 7(1) 1–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amirtham L R 2016 Urbanization and its impact on Urban Heat Island intensity in Chennai Metropolitan area India; Indian J. Sci. Technol. 9(5).

  • Aslam M Y, Krishna K R, Beig G, Tinmaker M I R and Chate D M 2017 Seasonal variation of Urban Heat Island and its impact on air-quality using SAFAR observations at Delhi, India; Am. J. Clim. Change 6(02) 294–305.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Babazadeh M and Kumar P 2015 Estimation of the Urban Heat Island in local climate change and vulnerability assessment for air quality in Delhi; Eur. Sci. J., 55–65.

  • Baby M M and Arya G 2016 A Study of Urban Heat Island and its mapping; Int. J. Sci. Eng. Res. 4(3) 45–47.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benali A, Carvalho A, Nunes J, Carvalhais N and Santos A 2012 Estimating air surface temperature in Portugal using MODIS LST data; Remote Sens. Environ., 108–121.

  • Blocken B 2015 Computational Fluid Dynamics for urban physics: Importance scales possibilities limitations and ten tips and tricks towards accurate and reliable simulations; Build. Environ., 1–27.

  • Borbora J and Das A K 2014 Summertime Urban Heat Island study for Guwahati City, India; Sustain. Cities Soc. 11 61–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chakraborty T, Sarangi C and Tripathi S N 2016 Understanding diurnality and inter-seasonality of a sub-tropical Urban Heat Island; Bound.-Layer Meteorol., https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-016-0223-0.

  • Deosthali V 2000 Impact of rapid urban growth on heat and moisture Islands in Pune City, India; Atmos. Environ. 34 2745–2754.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Devi S S 2006 Urban Heat Islands and environmental impact; 6th Symposium on the Urban Environment and Forum on Managing our Physical and Natural Resources.

  • Gopalakrishnan S G, Rama Krishna T V B P S and Sharan M 2003 Some signatures of Urban Heat Patches in southern India; Proc. Indian Natl. Sci. Acad. 5 603–614.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goswami A, Mohammad P and Sattar A 2016 A temporal study of Urban Heat Island (UHI) – A evaluation of Ahmedabad city, Gujarat; International Conference on Climate Change Mitigation and Technologies for Adaptation, pp. 1–5.

  • Grover A and Singh R B 2015 Analysis of Urban Heat Island (UHI) in relation to Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI): A comparative study of Delhi and Mumbai; Environments 2 125–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gupta A, Dey V and Goel D A 2009 Mitigation of thermal pollution to enhance urban air quality through Remote Sensing and GIS; 10th ESRI India User Conference.

  • Gupta R 2012 Temporal and spatial variations of Urban Heat Island effect in Jaipur City using satellite data; Environ. Urban. Asia 3(2) 359–374.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jain G and Sarkar S 2017 Urban Heat Island: Causes effects and mitigating strategies; Imp. J. Interdiscip. Res. 3(5) 2098–2103.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joshi R, Raval H, Pathak M, Prajapati S, Patel A, Singh V and Kalubarme M H 2015 Urban Heat Island characterization and isotherm mapping using geo-informatics technology in Ahmedabad City, Gujarat State, India; Int. J. Geosci. 6 274–285.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kannamma D and Sundaram D A M 2015 Significance of microclimatic study in Urban Canyons towards ambient urban space design; J. Today’s Ideas – Tomorrow’s Technol. 3(1) 95–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kikon N, Singh P, Singh S K and Vyas A 2016 Assessment of urban heat islands (UHI) of Noida City, India using multi-temporal satellite data; Sustain. Cities Soc. 22 19–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kratzer A 1937 Das Stadtklima.

  • Kratzer A 1956 The Climate of Cities (Das Stadtklima).

  • Kumar R and Singh S 2016 Case study for change detection analysis and land surface temperature retrieval in Uttrakhand Region and their correlation; Imp. J. Interdiscip. Res. 2(9) 1821–1825.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kumar K S, Udaya Bhaskar P and Kumari K P 2017a Assessment and mapping of urban heat island using field data in the new capital region of Andhra Pradesh, India; Indian J. Sci. Technol. 10(11) 1–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kumar R, Mishra V, Buzan J, Kumar R, Shindell D and Huber M 2017b Dominant control of agriculture and irrigation on Urban Heat Island in India; Sci. Rep., 1–10.

  • Landsberg H E 1981 The Urban Climate; Int. Geophys., 28.

  • Luke H 1818 The climate of London deduced from meteorological observations made at different places in the Neighbourhood of the Metropolis; 1p.

  • Marques Filho E P, Cassol M A, Karam H and Rizza U 2013 The vertical structure of Tropical Urban Heat Island with LES; Am. J. Environ. Eng. 3 24–31.

  • Mehrotra S 2018 Urban informal housing and surface Urban Heat Island intensity: Exploring spatial association in the city of Mumbai; Environ. Urban. Asia 9(2) 1–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mills G 2008 Luke Howard and The Climate of London; Weather 63(6) 153–157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mills G 2009 Luke Howard, Tim Oke and the study of urban climates; Eighth Symposium on the Urban Environment.

  • Mills G 2014 Urban climatology: History, status and prospects; Urban Clim. 10 479–489.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mirzaei P A and Haghighat F 2010 Approaches to study Urban Heat Island – Abilities and limitations; Build. Environ. 45 2192–2201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mohan M, Kandya A and Battiprolu A 2011 Urban Heat Island Effect over national capital region of India: A study using the temperature trends; J. Environ. Prot. 2 465–472.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mohan M, Kikegawa Y, Gurjar B R, Bhati S and Reddy Kolli N 2013 Assessment of Urban Heat Island effect for different land use–land cover from micrometeorological measurements and remote sensing data for megacity Delhi; Theor. Appl. Climatol. 112 647–658.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mohan M, Kikegawa Y, Gurjar B R, Bhati S, Kandya A and Ogawa K 2012 Urban Heat Island assessment for a Tropical Urban Airshed in India; Atmos. Clim. Sci. 2 127–138.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nakata-osaki C M, Lucas de Souza L C and Rodrigues D S 2015 A GIS extension model to calculate Urban Heat Island intensity based on urban geometry; Comput. Urban. Plan. Urban. Manag., 1–16.

  • Nesarikar-Patki P and Raykar-Alange P 2012 Study of inuence of land cover on Urban Heat Islands in Pune using remote sensing; IOSR J. Mech. Civil Eng. 3 39–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oke T R 1968 Sustainable urban development: Minimising Urban Heat Island effect and imperviousness factor; pp. 1–20.

  • Oke T R 1973 City size and the Urban Heat Island; Atmos. Environ. 7 769–779.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oke T R 2006 Towards better scientific communication in urban climate; Theor. Appl.Climatol. 84 179–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oke T R, Mills G, Christen A and Voogt J A 2017 Urban Climates.

  • Pandey P, Kumar D, Prakash A, Masih J, Singh M, Kumar S, Jain V K and Kumar K 2012 A study of Urban Heat Island and its association with particulate matter during winter months over Delhi; Sci. Total Environ. 414 494–507.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ramachandra T V and Kumar U 2010 Greater Bangalore: Emerging Urban Heat Island; GIS Develop. 14(1) 1–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sahu S, Pawar A and Mukherjee M 2014 Urban Heat Island investigation: Techniques and methods so far; Architecture – Time Space & People, pp. 16–22.

  • Sastry M, Majumder M, Kumar P and Kiran Kumar D E V S 2013 Sustainable urban development: Minimising Urban Heat Island effect and imperviousness factor; Sanei Working Paper Series, 13–03.

  • Sharma D and Bharat A 2009 Urban Heat Island effect – causes impacts methods of measurement and mitigation options; Institute of Town Planners, India 6(2) 69–77.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sharma N and Pandey P 2015 Study of Urban Heat Island in Bathinda City, Punjab; 16th ESRI India User Conference, pp. 1–14.

  • Shastri H, Barik B, Ghosh S, Venkataraman C and Sadavarte P 2017 Flip flop of Day–night and Summer–winter Surface Urban Heat Island intensity in India; Sci. Rep. – Nature 1–8.

  • Singh P and Kikon Noyingbeni Verma P 2017 Impact of land use change and urbanization on Urban Heat Island in Lucknow city, Central India: A remote sensing based estimate; Sustain. Cities Soc. 32 100–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swain D, Roberts G J, Dash J, Vinoj V, Lekshmi K and Tripathy S 2016 Impact of rapid urbanization on the microclimate of Indian cities: A case study for the city of Bhubaneswar; Proc. SPIE 9877 1–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas G, Sherin A P, Ansar S and Zachariah E J 2014 Analysis of Urban Heat Island in Kochi, India, using a modified local climate zone classification; Procedia Environ. Sci. 21 3–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Toparlar Y, Blocken B, Maiheu B and van Heijst G 2017 A review on the CFD analysis of urban microclimate; Renew. Sust. Energ. Rev., 1–28.

  • Vogt J V, Viau A A and Paquet P F 1997 Mapping regional air temperature fields using satellite-derived surface skin temperature; Int. J. Climatol., 1559–1579.

  • Zhang N, Wang X and Peng Z 2013 Large-Eddy simulation of mesoscale circulations forced by inhomogeneous Urban Heat Island; Bound.-Layer Meteorol., 179–194.

Download references

Acknowledgement

The first author is financially supported by CSIR (Grant No. Ack.No.141410/2K15/1) through Direct SRF Scheme and it is gratefully acknowledged.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Madras Institute of Technology, Chennai, 600 044, India

    K Veena & K M Parammasivam

  2. CTFD Division, CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories, Bengaluru, 560 017, India

    K Veena & T N Venkatesh

Authors
  1. K Veena
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. K M Parammasivam
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. T N Venkatesh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to K Veena.

Additional information

Communicated by Amit Kumar Patra

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Veena, K., Parammasivam, K.M. & Venkatesh, T.N. Urban Heat Island studies: Current status in India and a comparison with the International studies. J Earth Syst Sci 129, 85 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-020-1351-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-020-1351-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation