Do urban heat islands intensify droughts in tropical east Africa?

Abstract The horn of Africa is susceptible to droughts because of the persistent heat waves and insufficient precipitation. The growth of urban population and built-up urban environments exacerbate the overheating problems due to the urban heat island effects. Understanding the impacts of anthropogenic activities in such dry environments is important to control or mitigate extreme heat leading to droughts. This is required to preserve soil moisture, pothole waters, lakes and rivers that are required for pasture and drinking water. Nonetheless, the intensity and duration of the urban heat island effects have not been investigated in this region resulting in the underestimation of the intensity and severity of the extreme heat events. This study therefore performs the quantitative analyses of the intensity, duration and causality of the tropical surface urban heat islands (TSUHIs) for the first time using earth observation information at a regional to local scale. It also identifies the factors that control TSUHIs, considering background climate, population, vegetation and the impervious urban fractions. Results showed that the TSUHI in the capital cities of tropical east Africa varies from 1oC in Dodoma to 4oC in Kampala and reaches up to 8oC in Khartoum. The mean temperature contribution to regional climate from 2000-2020 is 0.64oC during the day and 0.34oC during the night, a mean total of around 0.5oC, a 0.25oC increase per decade. This is a quarter of the increase in global surface temperature, which is ~1.09oC from 2011 to 2020 compared to the 1850-1900 level. Most of these capital cities in this region exhibited high TSUHIs from late summer to winter and are dependent on mainly population, vegetation, evapotranspiration and soil moisture in different proportions.This urban induced additional temperature has been intensifying droughts in tropical east Africa. Therefore, urban planners are advised to consider the impacts of TSUHIs to reduce the severity of droughts in the tropical east Africa region.