## 3 Results and Discussions
### Comparison of LST Drivers at City and Intra-LCZ Scales
In LCZ2 and LCZ3, LST negatively and weakly correlated with Aspect, Elevation, MNDWI, NDBaI, NDBI, NDVI, and UI, as evidenced by low correlation coefficients. This indicated that cool spots within LCZ2 and LCZ3 were bare, wet, vegetated, and sparsely built-up areas. The study was conducted during the dry season and the contribution of surface wetness to LST with these densely built-up LCZs was negligible; hence, the low correlation with MNDWI. Similarly, the vegetation areas occupy close to negligible proportions in the LCZ, such that their cooling effect is very small. However, even though the effect is small, it still emphasizes the value of urban greenery and surface wetness in reducing LSTs, even within densely built-up areas. The observed strong correlation between NDVI and LST in sparsely built and natural land covers is attributed to the cooling effect of canopy transpiration [42]. The observation determined the same heat mitigation value of increasing surface wetness and vegetation within built-up areas also indicated in recent studies [23; 31; 82; 83]. In LCZ5 and LCZ6, increasing bareness and built-up proportion were the most prominent factors (highly so in LCZ6) in causing surface warming. The contribution of urban fabric had some influence in increasing surface warming, with a larger effect in LCZ6 than in LCZ5. Conversely, although bareness and built-up extent caused warming in LCZ7, their effect was weaker (low correlation with LST) than the cooling effect of surface water and vegetation cover. [PERSON] et al. [34] also observed that surface wetness due to proximity to water bodies has significant influence on LST. In terms of LCZA built-up extent, bareness and increasing urban fabric had marked contributions to surface warming. Increasing surface wetness and vegetation cover were the most significant surface cooling approaches in LCZA. There was very low correlation between elevation and LST in LCZA, while the extent of urbanization had the highest positive correlation with LST in LCZD. On the other hand, in LCZD, surface wetness and vegetation abundance had the strongest negative correlation with LST. Similar to LCZ3 and LCZ7, LST decreased with bareness in LCZD. The increase in NDVI, NDBI, and NDBaI, resulting in warming, adversely affected the thermal behavior of LCZG (water). This implies that factors such as water plants compromise the cooling effect that would be attained when an area is covered by a water body. This finding is supported by [PERSON] et al. [48], who noted that pure and polluted water reduces and increases LST, respectively. This implies that the maintenance of high water quality in an area is an important heat mitigation measure. In LCZ2, Aspect, built-up extent (NDBI), and urbanization extent did not have a significant influence of LST. This could be attributed to the built-up and urbanization extent being high and almost homogeneous. Competition between built-up and other functions is minimal, as the region is extensively and compactly constructed, with an almost uniform distribution of LST. This also explains why the correlation of LST with NDBI and UI is weak and insignificant (\(p>0.05\)) in the densely built-up LCZ2 and LCZ3. The magnitude of LST correlations with NDBI, NDVI, NDBaI, MNDWI, and UI exceeded 0.6 at the city scale. This indicated that the built-up/urbanization extent, vegetation distribution, and surface water explain the variations in LST at the city scale. As such, LCZs with a high density of buildings had higher LSTs than those with spaced out buildings surrounded by vegetation. The importance of these factors in explaining LST variations with LCZs was variable. As such, the correlation of LST with UI was only high in LCZ5, LCZ6, LCZA, and LCZD. In LCZs that are almost uniformly densely built-up, UI was almost homogeneous and no longer a factor controlling LST variations. At the intra-LCZ scale, variations of LST were mostly explained by NDVI, MNDWI, NDBaI, NDBI, and UI.