Landsat Observation of Land Use and Land Cover Change Monitoring and Its Correlation with Land Surface Temperature Through NDBI and NDVI Analysis: A Case Study of Pine Bluff City, Arkansas

Abstract

While rapid urbanization has been observed worldwide, some U.S. cities are experiencing a declining urbanization rate. For example, Pine Bluff city in Arkansas state has been losing its urban population at a concerning rate. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, this city has lost approximately 10,000 people in the last 3 decades (1993–2023). To observe population contraction resulting from urbanization, this study utilized remote sensing multispectral image analysis to identify whether urban decline accompanied by shrinking built-up areas is occurring in this city through land use and land cover (LULC) change analysis and to monitor the correlation between land surface temperature (LST) and built-up area and vegetation through the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and normalized difference built-up index (NDBI). The focus of the study was to extract the urban class via LULC analysis, which revealed a slight increase in the built-up area. However, the LST analysis revealed a notable increase in temperature, a positive correlation with the NDBI, and a negative correlation with the NDVI.