A Roberta Valente e ao estagiário Saulo pela ajuda inicial com o IDRISI;Aos grandes amigos do INPE Daniela França, Pablo Santos, Sâmia Garcia, pela ajuda nos programas, nas imagens, e, principalmente pela amizade;Aos amigos da fitotecnia Thomas Martin, Roberta Uzzo e Eltiza Rondino Aos grandes amigos Henrique Barbin e Giulina Del Nero Velasco pelos "artiguinhos", ajuda e dedicação;As grandes "irmãs" da República "Dojão", Mariana (Relpi), Paula (Foker), Giuliana (Tafassiu), Maria Luiza (Di-Luvio), Estela (Porviña) e Maria Tereza (Maetê) pela paciência e amizade;As moradoras e ex-moradoras da República "Gaiola das Lokas" pelos anos de formação na ESALQ;Aos amigos Rafael Fonseca, Raphael Moura e Gustavo Nakagima pela ajuda;Aos companheiros do Ano Leitinho da ESALQ/USP (Formandos 2002);A minha família, em especial minha mãe (Maria Inês), meu pai (Cláudio) e a duplinha dinâmicaminha irmã (Patrícia "erma") e meu cunhado Paulo (Miúdo) -pelas revisões, pelo apoio, paciência, dedicação e, acima de tudo, inspiração.Ao Thales pelo carinho, compreensão, apoio e dedicação;As amigas Daniela Roncato (Arroto), Carina Mendes (Voazã), Gisele Nunes (Gi), Thais Emídio (Tá) e Lais Marques (Lala) pela amizade, paciência e compreensão;Aos todos aqueles que de uma forma ou de outra ajudaram para a realização desse trabalho.ABSTRACT Global, regional and local climate changes represent one of the greatest concerns of humanity. Climate changes can occur through natural or anthropogenic causes. Urban areas usually present higher temperatures than rural areas. This thermal effect is called "heat-island phenomenon" and has great importance on urban climate studies. In the present work, we identified and analyzed the heat-islands from Piracicaba, São Paulo using remote sensing techniques. The heat-islands were analyzed according to its seasonality, intensity and morphology using images from Landsat 7 satellite. We performed analysis on regional climate changes and investigated the use of the IDRISI thermal algorithm to convert Landsat 7 infrared thermal data on land surface temperature (LST). In order to transform Landsat 7 infrared thermal data we used two mathematical methods. Climate changes were analyzed by monitoring the climate elements for long periods of time, enabling the visualization of directional or periodical regional changes. The main climate elements were studied using data from ESALQ meteorological station for the last 55 years . Temperature, relative humidity, evaporation and precipitation variation were found to be correlated with urban growth parameters. The results indicated that temperature, precipitation, relative humidity and evaporation increased during the studied period and have been classified as "climate trends". The temperature presented the more accentuated trend of increase and was positively correlated with the growing urbanization. The software IDRISI 3.2 can be used with Landsat 7 high resolution images, being a useful and rapid tool to study urban heat islands. The most intense summer heatislands were repres...