Evaluation of the Surface Temperature Variation With Surface Settings on the Urban Heat Island in Seoul, Korea, Using Landsat-7 ETM+ and SPOT

Spectral satellite imagery has been frequently used to identify surface features of the Earth. The moderate-resolution images of Landsat are typically useful to extract land cover and land use classification and surface temperature for large areas. High-resolution images such as from the Satellite Pour l´Observation de la Terre (SPOT) also provide highly detailed surface cover for regional and local scale studies. These features of satellite images were used to understand the surface temperature causing the urban heat island (UHI) in Seoul, Korea, according to the land cover settings. The surface temperature of the urbanized area had a close relationship with the surface structures, for example, density, rooftop materials, and shadow of buildings and resulted into the UHI effect in Seoul. These parameters playing an important role in controlling the surface temperature were investigated using the remote sensing approach employing both Landsat-7 and SPOT images.