Analysis of Urban Heat Island Intensity and Its Physical Drivers in Kano Metropolitan Area Using Satellite Thermal Data

Urban heat islands represent a measurable physical phenomenon in which built-up areas exhibit higher surface and air temperatures than surrounding rural landscapes due to differences in land cover, albedo, thermal mass, and latent heat exchange. This study analyzes the spatial intensity and physical drivers of the urban heat island in Kano Metropolitan Area, North West Nigeria, using Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor surface temperature data acquired for eight cloud-free scenes spanning both dry and wet seasons between 2021 and 2024. Land surface temperature retrieval was performed using the split-window algorithm, and land cover classification was produced from concurrent Operational Land Imager multispectral bands using a support vector machine classifier. Quantitative relationships between land surface temperature and biophysical surface parameters including normalized difference vegetation index, normalized difference built-up index, impervious surface fraction, albedo, and surface emissivity were analyzed through multiple linear regression and geographically weighted regression models. The analysis reveals a mean dry-season urban heat island intensity of 4.3 degrees Celsius between the central commercial district and peri-urban agricultural areas, with hotspots exceeding 7 degrees Celsius in heavily industrialized zones. Vegetation index emerges as the single strongest negative predictor of surface temperature, explaining 58 percent of spatial variance. The study identifies candidate green infrastructure intervention zones where strategic urban tree planting would most effectively reduce thermal hotspots. Findings contribute original empirical analysis of urban heat island physics in a major semi-arid West African city. Keywords: urban heat island, Kano, land surface temperature, Landsat, remote sensing