QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF URBAN GREEN SPACE AND LOCAL COOLING INTENSITY: A CASE STUDY OF CALABAR MUNICIPALITY, NIGERIA

This study investigates the thermal spatial expanse of green space and its cooling influence on the surrounding Land Surface Temperature (LST) of a densely urbanized area in Calabar Municipality, Nigeria using the Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) of Landsat 8 satellite remotely sensed data. Image pre-processing and analyses were implemented using the Environment for Visualizing Images (ENVI) and the Aeronautical Reconnaissance Coverage Geographic Information System (ArcGIS) application software respectively. Further statistical analysis using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was performed. In addition, the Split Window temperature algorithm was applied to retrieve the LST. It was observed that Urban Green Space has a positive impact on the ambient environment. Statistical analysis reveals that there is a strong positive correlation between distance from the green space outer boundary and surrounding temperature, with a value of 0.935 at < 0.1 significance. This implies that as the distance increases from the green space outer boundary, the temperature difference increases progressively.