Heat and Freshness Islands Analysis Using Digital Image Processing - Case Study City of São Paulo/SP

Abstract Brazilian cities have been growing in a disorderly manner and undergoing a disturbed anthropogenic process, which severely transforms the local atmosphere, influencing the quality of life of society. The purpose of this research is to analyze the temperature variation through the use of remote sensing, seeking to identify heat and freshness islands, their origins and the space-behavioral variation, having as study area the Municipality of São Paulo, a large city with population density of 7,398.26 inhabitants/km2 and more than 12,000,000 inhabitants. We opted to use Landsat 5 satellite images and SEBAL algorithm methodology for surface temperature calculation. The results show that the surface temperature variation has been increasing over the years, the city of São Paulo, the presence of large industrial zones, the disordered urban growth, the presence of soil sealing through asphalt coating, are some of the factors that contribute to the emergence of heat islands. It was also evidenced the presence of freshness zones, most of them in wooded areas, which contributes to reducing the temperature and improving the living conditions of the population.