Surface temperature, vegetation, and built-up areas in Philippine cities: A time series analysis

Abstract

 As land cover changes with the degree of urbanization, surface temperature follows. Here, we investigate how the land surface temperature (LST), vegetative health and density, and manufactured built-up density of the 33 Philippine highly urbanized cities (HUCs) evolved across time. We used satellite imagery data from Landsat 8 for the period March-May 2015-2024 to compute for the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI). We found that vegetation cover negatively correlates with built-up areas. In turn, surface temperature negatively correlates with vegetation cover but positively correlates with built-up areas. Metro Manila HUCs have the highest temperatures and built-up index, and the lowest vegetation index.