Impact of land-use and land-cover changes on temperature trends over Western India

We study the regional variation of temperature trends (warming or cooling) over Western India and the contribution of land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes towards this warming or cooling based on temperature datasets of 37 years (1973–2009). The contribution of LULC to the warming or cooling is estimated based on deviation in temperature in the observation and reanalysis datasets. The observed temperature dataset indicates that Western India is getting warmer by 0.13°C per decade. This warming is the combined effect of increase in concentration of greenhouse gases and LULC changes. The impact of LULC changes on temperature trends over Western India is estimated using ‘observation minus reanalysis’ method. The results indicate that the LULC changes have contributed to warming over this region by 0.06°C per decade. Comparison of the change in temperature trend with the change in LULC indicates warming due to LULC changes because of the reduction of area under open forest and subsequent increase of the area under agricultural land. The study highlights the impact of land-use change to be more significant and the utility of satellite data for periodic LULC studies in climate change research.