An Evaluation of Climate Change Effects and Trends using LST and NDVI

Abstract

Climate change is one of the most complex problems facing humanity due to its profound impact on human livelihoods and the numerous and complex variables that influence it. In this study, Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) images were used together with ancillary data to analyze the effects and trends of Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) as climate change indicators in the study area within the Masai Mara ecosystem. The years of study were 1985, 1995, 2003 and 2010. A remote sensing approach was used to extract LST and NDVI from the images and analyze their trends. Land use/ Land cover (LULC) types were also extracted from the images and an analysis of the relationship between LST, NDVI and LULC carried out. The results show an increase in anthropogenic land use in the form of cultivation from 196.64 Km 2 (3.04% of study area) in 1985 to 455.59 Km (7.05% of study area) in 2010, representing a 131% increase in the 25 year period. We found that a negative correlation exists between LST and NDVI in the absence of presence of cloud cover and precipitation for all land cover types as was the case between 1985 and 1995. 2