Relationship between the land cover change and the thermal environment in an agricultural region of Japan using multi-temporal airborne MSS

Recently, the heat island phenomenon has been observed in small cities in Japan. However, compared to large cities, small cities generally have more green and open spaces that can mitigate the heat island phenomenon. Since the urbanized area of Tonami, a small city in Japan, is surrounded by paddy fields, the thermal environment in Tonami may perhaps be improved during the summer by using the cooling effect of the paddy fields. In the present study, in order to mitigate the heat island phenomenon in the Tonami urbanized area, the characteristics of urban form and the state of the heat island of Tonami district were examined using remotely sensed data acquired in different times, and field surveys were conducted so as to clarify the degree of the cooling effect of paddy fields in Tonami urbanized area during summer. The result indicated that the heat island phenomenon occurred even in a small city, and that paddy fields committed to countermeasure the heat island phenomenon. In order to utilize the function of paddy fields, the information on the distribution of paddy fields was strongly needed. In this study, the accurate distribution map of paddy fields considering the seasonal land cover change and the condition of soil moisture was acquired using MSS data set.