Existing research has employed various methods to quantify urban heat island (UHI) effects, but the ideal method for individual cities remains unclear. This study investigated how different methods influence UHI understanding in Addis Ababa, a tropical city facing UHI challenges. Three methods were compared: dynamic urbanization, natural and built-up fractions, and urban center vs. surrounding rural areas. Satellite data and spatial analyses revealed maximum daytime UHIs of 4°C and 3.1°C in summer and autumn, respectively. Examining the mean temperature differences between urban and rural areas across methods yielded diverse results. This suggests that while the ‘dynamic urbanization’ method is statistically favorable in this specific case, averaging results from multiple methods produced a more robust and generalizable approach to understanding UHIs in different urban contexts. Ultimately, this study highlights the importance of context-specific method selection for accurately understanding the complex interplay between urban and rural environments.

The amount and quality of land, water and atmospheric information is critical to plan, monitor, predict and mitigate the impacts of climate change, urbanization and population growth. To get reasonably accurate regional information, Ethiopia launched its first Earth Observing satellite on the 20thof December 2019 in collaboration with the government of China. The 65-kg Ethiopian Remote Sensing Satellite (ETRSS-1) carries one earth observing multispectral camera to measure many aspects of land, water and biosphere. It was placed on sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 628.61km and collects images at a Ground Sampling Distance (GSD) of 13.75-m within a revisit period of 4 days. Currently, all the instruments are operating as intended and the early-stage images captured by ETRSS-1 are within sensible and acceptable range. This indicates that it can serve as a supplementary and alternative data source to operational and research services.