Urbanization-climate change Interactions and their effects on surface heat island in tropical monsoon environments

Climate change affects urbanisation in several distinct ways. Beyond the evident temperature fluctuations, it triggers urbanisation impacts by causing natural disasters, changing energy structure, and the geographical distribution of precipitation. The effect of surface urban heat islands (SUHI) has become increasingly noticeable in Thailand. Therefore, this study used Landsat datasets and the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud-based platform to examine land use change, geospatial indices, heat-island effects, and temperature fluctuations from 2015 to 2023. The LULC change (LULCC) recorded vegetation decreased by −40.40 km², agricultural land by −48.73 km², water bodies by −6.90 km², and the built-up land increased by 75.28 km² from 2015 to 2023. The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) area and its adjacent regions are identified most urbanized regions. The land surface temperature (LST) rose from 39.24 °C (2015) to 40.12 °C (2023), and similarly, SUHI increased by 0.166 to 1.223. Major cities (e.g., Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket, Chiang Mai, and Hat Yai) recorded the most significant reductions in the vegetation index (0.03) and development in the built-up index (0.04). The analysis is valuable for working adaptation strategies that measure risk associated with present climate change effects, which are impacted by hydrometeorological variables such as precipitation, temperature, humidity, and evaporation.