Determining the Cooling Effect of Urban Agricultural Areas Through Remote Sensing-Based LST and Spatial Analyses

Year 2025, Volume: 6 Issue: 4, 271 - 281, 30.12.2025

Nihat Karakuş

https://doi.org/10.56430/japro.1816563

Abstract

Urban agricultural zones emerge as a viable option to alleviate the adverse impacts of rising temperatures linked to urbanization. This study seeks to quantitatively assess the cooling effect of urban agriculture by utilizing Land Surface Temperature (LST) data, specifically focusing on a citrus orchard situated in the city center of Antalya. This study generated surface temperature maps of the urban agricultural region and its vicinity utilizing land surface temperature data obtained from Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS satellite imagery on July 30, 2024. A spatial investigation of surface temperatures was performed on 20 buffer zones created at 30-meter intervals surrounding the urban agriculture area. The effective cooling distance was established at the first turning point of the temperature trend, and temperature differentials with distance were assessed by regression analysis. The results indicated that the mean surface temperature of the urban agricultural zone was 42.69 ± 1.26 °C, which was, on average, 1.46 °C colder than the adjacent urban districts inside the 600 m buffer zone. The spatial analysis indicated that the cooling impact of the urban agricultural zone extends effectively up to 270 meters from its boundary. The cooling effect within this barrier ranged from 0.06 °C to 1.65 °C, and the surface temperature exhibited a statistically significant increase with greater distance (p < 0.001; R² = 0.93). The findings indicate that urban agricultural zones produce a cooling effect both within their confines and on the adjacent metropolitan landscape, with this effect diminishing progressively with distance. The study's findings suggest that the microclimate regulation capacity of urban agricultural zones might serve as a significant reference in spatial planning and the formulation of green infrastructure schemes. Future research may investigate the variations in the cooling effect of urban agricultural zones across different seasons through temporal change analysis.

Keywords

Antalya , Cooling effect , Micro-climate , Remote sensing , Urban agricultural

Ethical Statement

This study does not require ethical committee approval.

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