![]() Cooling is in the range of 3.35☌ to 3.6☌ at 1200 to 1400 metres away in winter. Spread over three square kilometres, Sukhna Lake is surrounded by thick vegetation, which cools ambient temperatures by 4.5☌ to 8.21☌ as far as 1500 to 1800 metres away during summer. ![]() Landsat images of the years 2009, 20 of 30-meter resolution were processed to produce the land surface temperatures of the study areas.Īn appreciable average temperature dip of 7.51☌ and 3.12 ☌ was observed during summer and winter for three years near Chandigarh’s Sukhna lake. Directional analyses were conducted by creating buffer areas, thus determining the extent of cooling over these cities. The study observes the effect of the water bodies on land surface temperatures seasonally, using remote sensing data and GIS techniques. Also, high evaporation produces a noticeable “oasis effect” around water bodies, decreasing nearby surface and air temperatures. The high heat capacity of water forms a “thermostat effect”, which in turn creates a cooling effect around surface water bodies like ponds, lakes and rivers. Besides anthropogenic heat, lack of green vegetation cover and water bodies leads to release of excess heat, resulting in the urban heat island phenomenon. Urbanization has resulted in the conversion of the natural land cover into impervious surface materials such as concrete, asphalt and metals. The Sukhna lake in Chandigarh and the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad were taken up in the study, to assess the variations in microclimate near these water bodies. The study provides direct evidence of how water bodies affect temperature variations. The east bank of the Sabarmati river, which flows through Ahmedabad, was found to be significantly cooler than the west bank, witnessing a greater drop in temperature even during summer. ![]() (Image: Viraj Bhuptani, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)Ī study published in the Journal of Remote Sensing and Space Sciences, analyzing the cooling effect on the city of Ahmedabad’s water bodies, has thrown up some interesting findings. Surface water bodies such as the Sabarmati river have the potential to mitigate the effect by providing a perspective cooling through evaporation, thereby reducing the heating effect. ![]()
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