Evaluating and predicting the impact of land use and land cover change on land surface temperature in Lac Duong district, Lam Dong province, Vietnam

Land use and land cover (LULC) change is a key factor influencing land surface temperature (LST) dynamics. This change reflects partly global warming and climate change at local and regional scales. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of LULC on LST change in Lac Duong mountainous district, Lam Dong province in the past 10 years (2013 - 2023), and predict the LST change in 2030. The study used satellite image data from Landsat 8 and 9 OLI to build LULC and LST maps and used the CA-ANN model to predict the LST map. The results showed that the forest land had the LST below 25°C, with the below 20°C LST area correlated negatively with the forest land area, while 20 - 25°C LST correlated positively, especially at the temperature of 22 - 25°C (R2 = 0.97). The 22 - 25°C and 30 - 35°C temperature levels (R2 = 0.76 and R2 = 0.86) correlated sharply with the crop land area. The LST levels between 30 - 40°C reflected the built-up land and bare land with the highest correlation of R2 = 0.68 and 0.88, respectively. The LST level 20 - 22°C represented the water body area (R2 = 0.87). The LULC changes had an impact on the LST change in the past 10 years in Lac Duong district. While the forest land area decreased slightly by 0.5%, the cool LST area fell considerably by 10.5% compared to 10 years ago. An almost doubling of the cropland area also led to a doubling in the 25 - 35°C LST areas. In addition, the 35 - 40°C LST level started to happen in several regions. The LST change was predicted to keep increasing in 2030. The temperature was predicted to increase by 2 - 3°C with a maximum temperature of 42°C.