Quantifying the impact of surface and climatic factors on changes in land surface temperature in the Kardeh watershed

Malekinezhad, Hossein; Akbari, Maryam; Hajibigloo, Mahbobeh

doi:10.22059/ije.2025.396399.1872

Quantifying the impact of surface and climatic factors on changes in land surface temperature in the Kardeh watershed

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

¹ Faculty of Natural Resources, Yazd University

² 1Ph.D Student in Watershed Sciences and Engineering, Faculty of Natural Resources and Desert Studies, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

³ 3Ph.D in Watershed Sciences and Engineering, Faculty of Rangeland and Watershed, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources , Gorgan, Iran

10.22059/ije.2025.396399.1872

Abstract

Land surface temperature (LST) affects the energy exchange between the land surface and the atmosphere, which is very important for studying environmental changes. In the present study, we quantified the impact of natural and human factors on LST in the Kardeh basin using the Geodetector model. According to the results of the factor detector, the altitude parameter with an explanatory power of 43.17% is the most effective factor on the spatial variability of LST in the region. Then, the land use and average annual precipitation have an explanatory power of 31.29% and 21.23%, respectively. The results of the interaction detector analysis showed bivariate enhancement for both factors, and the interaction between altitude and land use expressed the highest explanatory power (0.64). The interaction between the altitude factor and other parameters with the highest q value ranged from 0.43 to 0.60. The risk detector results also showed that the low-lying, low-elevation, and low-slope areas of the basin are mainly dominated by the intensity of human activities and rainfed agriculture and interact with terrestrial factors, resulting in the highest temperatures. These findings will help improve land management strategies in the Kardeh River Basin and other regions with arid and semi-arid climates.

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