RESEARCH ARTICLE
Land Surface Temperature Dynamics during COVID-19 Lockdown in Diverse Climatic and Physiographic Zones—A Study of Indian Mega Cities
Ashish Mishra,
Dhyan S. Arya,
Corresponding Author
Ashish Mishra
Department of Hydrology, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India
Correspondence:
Ashish Mishra ([email protected])
Search for more papers by this authorDhyan S. Arya
Department of Hydrology, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India
Search for more papers by this authorAshish Mishra,
Dhyan S. Arya,
Corresponding Author
Ashish Mishra
Department of Hydrology, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India
Correspondence:
Ashish Mishra ([email protected])
Search for more papers by this authorDhyan S. Arya
Department of Hydrology, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India
Search for more papers by this authorABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in China at the end of 2019, escalated into a global crisis by March 2020. To mitigate its spread, governments worldwide implemented strict lockdown measures. While these lockdowns had adverse social, economic, and health impacts, they also led to significant environmental improvements in many regions. India's urban environment also significantly improved during lockdown. This study investigates the changes in Land Surface Temperature (LST) across eight major Indian cities, each representing diverse climatic and physiographic zones: Delhi, Dehradun, Lucknow, Kolkata, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. It aims to enhance the understanding of how sudden reductions in anthropogenic activities influence urban temperatures. The LST was computed for the lockdown period of April to May 2020 and was compared with the pre-lockdown years of 2018 and 2019 and the post-lockdown year of 2021, utilizing Landsat thermal data processed through the mono-window algorithm. The results exhibit significant reductions in LST during the lockdown period. Cities like Delhi, Dehradun, and Lucknow experienced a reduction of 6°C, 5°C, and 4°C, respectively, in LST from pre-lockdown to lockdown periods. In contrast, cities like Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Mumbai, and Hyderabad experienced a reduction of around 2°C–3°C. However, the city of Kolkata showed an increase of 3°C from 2019 to 2020. These results highlight the substantial influence of human activities on urban thermal environments and underline the potential benefits of reducing anthropogenic impacts to improve urban thermal well-being.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Open Research
Data Availability Statement
The Landsat data we used in this study is available at the U.S. Geological Survey (https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/).
Supporting Information
| Filename | Description |
|---|---|
| tgis13237-sup-0001-Supinfo.docxWord 2007 document , 5.4 MB |
FIGURE S1. LST transect profiles for Bhopal: (a) East–West Transect, (b) North–South Transect. FIGURE S2. LST transect profiles for Delhi: (a) East–West Transect. (b) North–South Transect. |
Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.
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