AbstractRapid urbanization in George Town, Malaysia, a UNESCO World Heritage city, has led to significant ecological degradation over the past three decades. This study enhances the Remote Sensing Ecological Index (RSEI) by integrating water resources as a new parameter, providing a comprehensive assessment of the city's ecological health from 1992 to 2022. Utilizing multi-temporal Landsat data, ecological assessment parameters such as land cover, soil moisture, surface temperature, and greenness patterns were analyzed. The integration of these parameters into the RSEI revealed correlations between forest cover and water body degradation, with a 54.90% and 46.94% reduction, respectively, leading to increased surface temperatures and negatively impacting soil moisture. The analysis shows that 37.64% of George Town experienced ecological degradation over three decades, with areas of excellent ecological health declining from 11.13 to 4.45%. A hybrid machine learning algorithm combining Cellular .....