Monitoring the surface Heat Island (SHI) effects of industrial enterprises

The aim of this study is to present the effects of industrial enterprises on Land Surface Temperature (LST) and to retrieve Surface Heat Island (SHI) maps of these regions. SHI is one of the types of Urban Heat Island (UHI) and as the urban areas grow in a city, UHI effect becomes bigger. The city centre of Zonguldak was chosen as study area and Landsat 5 satellite data were used as materials. Zonguldak has important industrial enterprises like thermal power plants and iron and steel plant. ERDEMIR is the biggest iron and steel plant in Turkey and it is one of the biggest ones in Europe, as well. There are three operating thermal power plants in the region namely CATES, ZETES1 and ZETES2. In order to investigate these industrial regions, Landsat 5 satellite data were processed using mono-window algorithm to retrieve LST and they were acquired on 11.09.1987, 18.09.2007 and 29.09.2011, respectively. The obtained results revealed that from 1987 to 2011, spatial and temporal variability in LST in industrial enterprises became higher than the surroundings. Besides, the sizes of SHIs in 2011 are bigger than the ones in 1987. For the countries and governments, having industrial enterprises is crucial for the development and it is also important to present the community better conditions in life. Thus, decision makers should consider mitigating the effects of these regions on LST.