<b>Influence of land use on urban climate of a small town</b> - doi: 10.4025/actascitechnol.v35i2.13703

Abstract

This study aimed to quantify the influence of anthropogenic activity in changing the microclimate of the urban area of a small town. To this end, the temperature and relative humidity were monitored over six days using a direct-reading thermo-hygrometers placed in mini weather stations. The points where these instruments were installed were spatialized in geographic information system environment using Quickbird satellite imagery. It was defined areas of influence with 450 m radius from each sampling point, which were vectorized and classified according to urban land use. Analysis of Variance indicated a statistically significant difference in temperature and relative humidity between sites under different human activity levels. Later a linear correlation between the temperature and relative humidity with the anthropogenic levels, evidenced that anthropic areas are closely related to local climatic variation. The interference of green areas works inversely, increasing the definition of microclimate throughout the day. The effects of land use on the microclimate are cumulative, i.e, at the end of the day the correlation of the microclimate with land use reached a maximum.

Keywords

• microclimate
• remote sensing
• local climate
• Irati