Temperature Variation and Climate Resilience Action within a Changing Landscape

Abstract

Temperature change can have profound impacts on livelihood activities and human well-being. Specific factors such as land transitions and climate knowledge can influence temperature variation and actions for adaptation. In addition to meteorological data, this study integrates land surface temperature (LST) derived from satellite imagery and local temperature perceptions obtained through interviews to advance a deeper understanding of spatial temperature and its impacts, which is not often seen within climate studies. This study examines local temperature across three different land types (rural mountains, rural agricultural lowlands, urban areas) in the Greater Angkor Region of Cambodia to highlight important insights about temperature and climate resilience action. The results revealed that changes in temperature were most pronounced in Phnom Kulen National Park (rural mountain) and in the rural agricultural lowlands, where residents discussed direct impacts and disruptions to their lives. Temperature, in both the LST results and through local perceptions, demonstrated a strong correlation to ground features, where areas with low vegetation exhibited high temperatures and areas with high vegetation observed low temperatures. While climate action in the form of tree planting and forest conservation are major climate mitigation strategies being undertaken in this region, social awareness and the ability to adapt to changes in temperature was revealed to be uneven across the landscape, suggesting that local entities should mobilize around gaining more education and training for all residents.

Satellite-Derived Land Surface Temperature Dynamics in the Context of Global Change—A Review

“…For the multitemporal category, the SUHI studies dominate, making up 34 of the 45 studies. However, here we also found some studies with other research topics, e.g., in the context of heat waves [20], forest dynamics [30,36], general vegetation dynamics [42,48,51], wildfires [54,55] and LSWT [191]. While in the mono-, bi-and multitemporal categories, most studies use Landsat LST, in the time series category, MODIS is the most common sensor.…”

“…Only three studies were categorized into 'Lithosphere'. It should be mentioned that several studies dealt with multiple topics, which can even be assigned to different spheres; for example, studies dealing with general vegetation dynamics also dealt with soil moisture dynamics [26,29], snow-and-permafrost dynamics [29], droughts [24,25], urbanization [51], heat waves [20] and global warming [15]…”

“…Forty-eight (81%) of the studies, which used high-resolution LST, were in the context of SUHI. The remaining studies were conducted in the context of heat waves [20], general vegetation dynamics [20,29,49,51], wildfires [54], permafrost [29], lake surface temperature [191], soil moisture dynamics [29], volcanic and seismic [184] and geothermal activities [186]. Twelve studies (7%) used a medium-high resolution, which mostly results from a fusion of multiple data sources, e.g., MODIS and Landsat [85,102] or different Landsat generations [104].…”

“…Figure 1 provides an overview of the application fields of LST. LST has been used to study global warming [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16], interannual climate variabilities [5,[7][8][9][10]14,17], heat waves [18][19][20], droughts [21][22][23][24][25], soil moisture dynamics [22,23,[26][27][28][29], forest dynamics [28,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39], general vegetation-temperature interactions [15,20,[24]…”

Spatial and Temporal Assessment of Remotely Sensed Land Surface Temperature Variability in Afghanistan during 2000–2021

“…Air temperature changes influence not only LST but also soil moisture and nutrient contents, which, in turn, affect the physiological characteristics, community structure, and population dynamics of plants [6][7][8]. Such abnormal climate change resulting from the negative effects of human activities over the past few decades is the main reason for the series of environmental and ecological problems, such as soil degradation, air pollution, surface temperature changes, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem degradation [9][10][11]. Albedo changes resulting from the intensification of global warming additionally and significantly impact local weather conditions, especially in the case of the snow-covered ground at mid-latitudes and high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere [12][13][14][15].…”