The urban centre and its suburban environment are largely influenced by changes driven by people as a result of urbanization and other anthropogenic activities. Urbanization impacts on air and water quality, local climate and biodiversity. This study assesses the Urban Heat Island (UHI) of Lokoja town and surroundings from LandSat ETM satellite imagery of 2001 using remote sensing techniques. Band 3, 4 and 6 of the imagery were use in the estimation of NDVI, land surface emissivity and surface temperature. The results show that urban heat island in Lokoja town is significant, with average Land surface temperature values range from 301.13K to 336.14K., and maximum urban/suburban temperature difference reaching 10.9 o C. This suggests that vegetation is the principal determinant controlling the spatial distribution of land surface heat flux. This approach was found to be more effective in assessing urban heat island than using the conventional "in situ" temperature estimation.

The uncontrolled urban growth in cities comes with unattending alteration in the urban environmental system. This alteration as land use types change is most responsible for some of the problems witnessed in urban town such as the variation in land surface temperatures over time. This study used Remote sensing and GIS techniques to identify, mark and measure the extent of the various land uses from the Landsat TM image of 1995 and Landsat ETM+ image of 2006. The study revealed that the spatial and temporal changes in the land uses have greatly influenced the increase in the land surface temperature of each of the identified land uses. As vacant land and built-up area increased by 3.28 ha/yr and 78.34 ha/yr so did their land surface temperature increased by 0.083 o C/yr. While vegetation and water and wetland vegetation decreased, their respective land surface temperature increased by 0.075 o C/yr and 0.083 o C/yr. This increase in land surface temperature of the study area within the period of study suggest that the rise in temperature of the various land uses may encourage environmental problems associated with local climate change as heat waves and mosquito infestations which can cause human discomfort as its been witnessed today in Anyigba. Proper checks on the development and conversion of land uses, urban forestry and adequate planning if employed may help in managing this occurence from agravating other environmental problems associated with land uses change and climate change.