About

The project was initiated with procurement and archival of Land Cover data over Bhubaneswar from Remote Sensing satellites, maps at different scales and in situ observations. That was followed by classification of the data sets into categories based on different thermal properties such as agriculture, forests, settlements, soil and impervious surfaces (or similar categories as required by the models). Combinations of data sets at various resolutions (e.g. moderate spatial resolution data from Landsat and available Indian Remote Sensing satellites and high spatial resolution imagery) were used and the generated land cover maps were validated through extensive ground data collection.These were also used to define the seasonal variations of the extent and magnitude of the UHI. The emerging data products could then be used for fine scale modeling of evapotranspiration, water use and energy balance of urban areas.