M. Zoran, D. Savastru, S. Miclos, M. N. Tautan, L. Baschir, Multisensor satellite remote sensing data for heat waves assessment in metropolitan area J. Optoelectronic. Adv. Mater., 13/9 (2011) 1159-1166.

Title: Multisensor satellite remote sensing data for heat waves assessment in metropolitan area

Abstract: Heat waves are expected to become more frequent and severe as climate changes, with unknown consequences for human health and urban ecosystems. Remote sensing is a key application in global-change science and urban climatology. Urbanization, the conversion of other types of land to uses associated with growth of populations and economy has a great impact on both micro-climate as well as macro-climate. By integrating high-resolution and medium-resolution satellite imagery with other geospatial information, have been investigated several land surface parameters including impervious surfaces and land surface temperatures for a metropolitan region. The aim of this study is to examine the changes in land use/cover pattern in a rapidly changing city of Bucharest in relation to urbanization since the 1990 till 2010 and then to investigate the impact of such changes on the intensity and spatial pattern of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in the region. Investigation of land cover changes in relation with land surface temperature/emissivity is based on satellite data provided by various sensors Landsat TM, ETM+, IKONOS and MODIS Terra/Aqua. This paper demonstrates the potential of moderate-and high resolution, multispectral and multitemporal imagery to map and monitor the evolution of the physical urban environment in relation with micro and macroclimate conditions very important for summer periods conditions and large European scale heat waves like have been recorded in 2007 year.

Key words: Satellite remote sensing; Urban Heat Island; heat wave; multisensor satellite remote sensing; land surface temperature; Bucharest