Land use and land cover changes influence the land surface temperature and vegetation in Penang Island, Peninsular Malaysia

The ecological changes in vegetation and land of an area can be monitored and managed through the assessment of its past and present land use and land cover (LULC). In this study, we assessed the changes in the LULC of Penang Island between 2010 and 2021. We also determined the corresponding impacts on the land surface temperature (LST) and vegetation index in the form of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Landsat-5 and Landsat-8 were selected for the study. The LULC types were classified using both supervised and unsupervised multivariate maximum likelihood techniques. The LULC change analysis revealed a considerable increase in the urbanized areas (45.71%), a slight increase in the forests (1.57%) and a sizeable reduction in the agricultural/herbaceous areas (− 33.49) of the city within the stipulated period. The urbanized areas were observed to have the highest LST in 2010 and 2021 (28.75–34.0 °C) followed by the bare land (29.76–29 °C). The increase in temperature could have been driven by the reduction in the greenness of the city coupled with the openness of vegetation cover. Similarly, strong positive correlations were observed between the LST and NDVI in the urbanized areas (R(2) = 0.92), and bare lands (R(2) = 0.86). We, therefore, hypothesize that urbanization is the main driver of the LULC changes on Penang Island.