SEASONAL VARIATIONS IN EFFECTIVE TEMPERATURE (ETI) AND HEAT (HI) INDICES DUE TO LAND USE IN AN URBAN AREA IN EASTERN AMAZONIAN REGION

Abstract

Recent studies in the Amazon area show that urbanization is the most impacting factor in microclimatic patterns, contrasting with the reduction of vegetation cover, the most relevant element for maintaining thermal comfort. The objective of the investigation is to analyze the variation of the thermal comfort index in the city of Macapá-AP under the influence of land use and occupation, especially in relation to the reduction of vegetation cover. The investigation methodology consisted of the analysis of the effective temperature index and the heat index as predictive factors of thermal comfort during three distinct seasonal periods: rainy (April/2018), dry (November/2018) and transition (June/2019). For this purpose, five urban sites were strategically chosen and carefully distributed along the Northeast-Southwest and West-East axes of the city, using the technique of supervised classification and monitoring of time series of average temperature and relative humidity. The results suggest that the most vegetated areas avoid the extrapolation of the limits of the thermal comfort indices (p<0.05), confirming similar results in the literature recorded in other Amazonian cities. Thus, the Effective Temperature Index ranged between comfortable and uncomfortable and the Heat Index ranged between comfortable and cautious, presenting considerable space-seasonal thermal amplitude.