Urban development impact on climate variability and surface water quality in part of Mangaung metropolis of South Africa

ABSTRACT

The overpopulation of urban centres accelerates land use patterns, slum creation and generation of contaminants. As such, this study seeks to investigate the impact of rapid urbanisation on climate variability and surface water quality around Mangaung metropolis. Remote sensing was employed to analyse land use land cover (LULC), normalized differential vegetation index (NDVI) and normalized differential water index (NDWI) changes for a period of 30 years in the Mangaung metropolis. Furthermore, the historical water quality of important rivers and dams were studied in respect of urban contamination. LULC revealed that the urban areas increased exponentially which led to increased loss of vegetation cover and shortage of water availability. The rainfall and water type evolution suggests the influence of urbanisation. This suggests urbanisation accelerates the loss of vegetation cover, thus causing an increase in temperature and reduction in the amount of rainfall, thereby reducing the surface water quantity in the study area.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban development
• climate variables
• LULC
• NDWI
• NDVI
• water quality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development: [Grant Number SIP2020-CCHD-9]. The support of the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development towards this research/activity is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at, are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the CoE in Human Development.