Singapore: A “Garden City”?

Selected Theme: Land Cover Change Detection using high resolution multispectral satellite data

The motivation was to monitor Singapore’s progress to become a City in Nature according to the SG Green Plan.

The main objective was to detect and analyse changes in land cover from the commission of the green plan (2020) to the current day (2022). The method was able to determine the Net Change in Vegetation. The secondary objective was to determine the change impact of the Urban Heat Island Effect in relation to urban development. The statistical findings are helpful for policymakers when further developing.

SCP Classification tool with training and testing data defined was used to perform the classification of the Land Cover Types. Minimum Distance was the best algorithm for both 2020 and 2022. SCP Change Detection tool was used to highlight the changes between both classifications. The change matrix was used to identify and filter out unwanted changes. Data Cleaning was performed to select correctly classified changes. Area calculation based on pixel was calculated to retrieve the statistics of changes.

As for Land Surface Temperature (LST) Change, a series of Landsat data was used to calculate the average change in LST between the period 2020 - 2022. Google earth engine and javascript helped to calculate the average temperature on pixel level through consolidation via appropriate formula and band selection. An average temperature plot was generated using Jupyter Notebook.

Key Findings showed that there was a Net Decrease in Vegetation (- 500 ha) within 2 years contrary to the government’s aims.. Furthermore, the green spaces added were insufficient which may result in accessibility to nature by residents.

However, LST dropped by 1.91 Degrees which means that despite an increase in urban development, the Government is taking measures to cool Singapore. Another potential reason would be reduced industrial activities during the COVID-19 period.

Overall, despite cooling Singapore down, it would not be able to replace what natural vegetation could provide for the citizens. Policymakers could use this information and maps as a reference when making future decisions.