Mapping the urban overheating hazard and its driving factors in Addis Ababa

Seyoum Melese Eshetie, Space Science and Geospatial Institute of Ethiopia
Urbanization drives global environmental changes and presents a challenge for sustainability, notably through urban overheating. This leads to increased air pollution, elevated temperatures both day and night, discomfort, and higher mortality due to excessive heat. Understanding land surface temperature (LST) distribution and drivers is crucial for mitigating overheating. A study in Addis Ababa aimed to uncover LST spatial patterns, explore variable-LST relationships, and compare ordinary least squares (OLS) and geographically weighted regression (GWR) for modeling these links. Significant hot spots were found in the north-central area. While OLS showed non-stationarity, GWR demonstrated superiority (R2=0.57, AIC=1052.1) over OLS (R2=0.42, AIC=2162.0), capturing spatial variations effectively and improving model accuracy in explaining the relationship between LST and variables.