Impacts of Climate Change on the Urban Environment and Health: The Geospatial Technologies Approach

Globally, land use changes and dynamics in major cities have increased the air temperature and pollution leading to climate change associated with extreme heat at urban centers, thus posing threats to human health. This study aimed at appraising the urban heat occurrences, magnitude, and spatio-temporal extent as induced by changes in land use and climate. It is hypothesized that the recent rapid increase in heat stress and malaria incidents in Nigeria are highly correlated with the changes in land use and climate. The study used high resolution and multi-temporal satellite imageries of Landsat ETM+ and sentinel data spans from 1990 to 2022 on malaria incidents extracted from WHO website, land use and climate covering 1990–2022 which were processed and analyzed using geospatial software such as ArcGIS pro, Erdas imagine and global mapper. The results revealed that urban heat stress aggravated with increase in built-up and bare land areas especially in the last decade. Further, it was observed that heat stress and malaria incidents tend to align with the change trends in land use and climate. Considering the high rate of urban thermal scenarios due to rapid urban expansion, the heat stress and other health issues such as malaria will be exacerbated over time if urgent measures are not taken. This work provides useful information for the stakeholders (such as health officials, planners, and policy-makers) in targeting areas for future interventions and mitigations.