Time Series Analyses and Forecasting of Surface Urban Heat Island Intensity Using ARIMA Model in Punjab, Pakistan

In the context of rapid urbanization, Urban Heat Island (UHI) is considered as a major anthropogenic alteration in Earth environments, and its temporal trends and future forecasts for large areas did not receive much attention. Using land surface temperature (LST) data from MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer) for years 2006 to 2020, we quantified the temporal trends of daytime and nighttime surface UHI intensity (SUHII, difference of urban temperature to rural temperature) using the Mann-Kendall (MK) trend test in six major cities of the Punjab province of Pakistan and estimated the future SUHII for the year 2030 using the ARIMA model. Results from the study revealed that the average mean SUHII for daytime was noted as 2.221 °C and the average mean nighttime SUHII was noted as 2.82 °C for the years 2006 to 2020. The average mean SUHII for daytime and nighttime exhibited increasing trends for all seasons and annually, and for the daytime spring season it showed a maximum upward trend of 0.486 °C/year (p < 0.05) and for the nighttime annual SUHII with an increasing rate of 0.485 °C/year (p < 0.05) which exhibited a maximum upward trend. The ARIMA model forecast suggested an increase of 0.04 °C in the average daytime SUHII and an increase of 0.1 °C in the average nighttime SUHII until 2030. The results from this study highlight the increasing trends of daytime and nighttime SUHII, ARIMA also forecasted an increase in daytime and nighttime SUHII, suggesting various strategies are needed for an effective mitigation of the UHI effect.