Determining Future Drivers of Local Urban Climate of Lahore by Using Remote Sensing Techniques

World’s mega-cities are urbanizing at the cost of prime green areas around the city’s outskirts. Urban area’s local climate is adversely affected by the land use change pattern such as smog events occur in developing metropolitan cities due to loss of vegetation. Severe environmental challenges are being faced due to increasing urbanization trends, which need to be predicted in the future years. Landuse Landcover change determination with the help of Landsat enhanced thematic mapper from the past years to the present (1996–2022) is done along with operational Land Imager (OLI). Correlation between the Normalized Difference Vegetative Index (NDVI) and the Normalized Difference Buildup Index (NDBI) with the LST is used to understand the spatial urban variability in terms of surface urban heat island effects. Concrete structure and haphazard development have been increased dramatically which led to a decrease in the vegetation of Lahore. There is a demonstration of 5.49% decrease in green areas, 11% decrease in barren land and 1.5% in water bodies while 16% increase occurred in the buildup area. Future local urban climate of the city is predicted by identifying UHI through LULC for different years and for the future 2035 with the help of Artificial Neural Network-multi-layer perception model run with the help of MOLUSCE Tool in QGIS. There is a prediction of a rise in temperature of 2 °C with a decrease in overall of 3% in the green cover area around the city which needs to be addressed by the city management for taking preemptive measures for sustainable urban development.