Between 2003 and 2020, India's cities warmed at 0.53°C per decade –double the rate of the rest of the country. Satellite imagery reveals this transformation, documenting how green turned to grey, water bodies vanished, and land surface temperatures soared – in some cases by as much as 15°C in three decades. This was particularly pronounced in the northwestern, northeastern and southern regions.

We looked at studies that analysed data from nine cities spanning up to five decades. The images reveal three patterns: extreme sprawl that replaced natural landscapes with concrete, the paradox of the city that added trees but still got hotter, and the systematic loss of water bodies that once cooled urban environments.

As cities turn into heat islands, India’s urban population exposed to high temperatures is estimated to rise eightfold by 2050, as IndiaSpend reported in the first part of this series. Vulnerable communities, unable to afford cooling, will suffer the most.

“This inevitable development could exacerbate the Urban Heat Island crisis our cities are already facing and further reduce the quality of living," says Abhiyant Tiwari, climate resilience lead and health consultant at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Every city shows increased built-up area and rising land surface temperatures. But the details vary. Bengaluru experienced the most extreme sprawl and temperature rise. Hyderabad presents a paradox – green cover increased 197%, yet LST rose 7.55°C. These variations reflect different urbanisation drivers: Bengaluru's tech boom, Hyderabad's IT and pharmaceuticals, Patna's administrative role, Chennai's haphazard expansion.

Extreme sprawl

In Bengaluru, built-up area rose ten-fold from about 6,000 hectare in 1973 to 64,000 hectare in 2023, accompanied by a fall in area of vegetation cover (88%) and water bodies (79%) from 69,000 hectare to 9,900 hectare, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science have found.

Just in the last three decades, this urban sprawl has caused the overall average LST in Bengaluru to rise by 15.13°C, according to a study by researchers at the city’s Christ University and Qatar University.

From a climate and public health standpoint, this increase would be classified as “severe and hazardous”, says Shikha Patel, lead author and research assistant at the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning in Qatar University. This rate of increase is not acceptable, she adds, and indicates an urgent need for cooling strategies.

Patel points to the rapid population growth, economic development, and the city's emergence as a major IT and industrial centre as primary factors. The most intense phase of urban sprawl and land use change, as evidenced by satellite images, occurred after the early 2000s leading to the creation of urban heat islands, she adds.

Land use maps of Bengaluru metropolitan area (Source: Urban Transitions, September 2025)

In the case of Vijayawada, which saw a 15.84°C rise in LST between 

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