The relationship of heritage trees in urban heat island mitigation effect at Taiping, Perak, Malaysia / Nor Suhaida Yusof, Nur Huzeima Mohd Hussain and Noradila Rusli

Every tree species provide different cooling effect depending on their tree characteristics. Evergreen species such as heritage trees are significant in reducing the surface temperature. The aim of this paper is to determine the relationship of heritage treesin mitigating urban heat island at Taiping Old Town. The research had been conducted through Landsat 8 OLI and field data collection. Thisresearch integrated the Geographic Information System (GIS) and remote sensing in data processing and analysis. The results show the low significant relationship of tree characteristics and Land Surface Temperature (LST) with (R²=0.17) which indicate that external factors may also influence the changes in temperature

中国における都市化総合評価及び環境への影響に関する研究

In Chapter one, research background and significance is investigated. In addition, previous studies and current situation in the research fields was reviewed and discussed. In Chapter two, an in-depth review of prior studies associated with the research topic was conducted. The literature review was carried out from three aspects: urbanization and eco-environment evalution and coordination, urban sprawl assessment and urban heat island investigation. In Chapter three, maximum entropy method was applied to help generate the evaluation system of eco-environment level and urbanization level at provincial scale. Comparison analysis and coordinate analysis was carried through to assess the development of urbanization and eco-environment as well as the balance and health degree of the city develops. In Chapter four, DMSP/OLS stable nighttime light dataset was used to measure and assess the urban dynamics from the extraction of built up area. Urban sprawl was evaluated by analyzing the landscape metrics which provided general understanding of the urban sprawl and distribution pattern characteristics could be got from the evaluation. In Chapter five, the investigation of surface urban heat island effects in Beijing city which derive from land surface temperature retrieval from remote sensing data of Landsat TM was carried out. In addition, spatial correlation and relationship between the urbanization level, vegetation coverage and surface urban heat island was carried out in this chapter. In Chapter six, all the works have been summarized and a conclusion of whole thesis is deduced.北九州市立大

Projection of land surface temperature considering the effects of future land change in the Taihu Lake Basin of China

Land surface temperature (LST) is an important environmental parameter that is significantly affected by land use and landscape composition. Despite the recent progress in LST retrieval algorithms and better knowledge of the relationship between LST and land coverage indices, predictive studies of future LST patterns are limited. Here, we project LST patterns in the Taihu Lake Basin to the year 2026 based on projected land use pattern and simulated land coverage indices that include normalized difference built-up index (NDBI), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and normalized difference water index (NDWI). We derived the spatiotemporal LST patterns in the Taihu Lake Basin from 1996 to 2026 using thermal infrared data from Landsat imagery. A CA-Markov model was applied to project the 2026 land use pattern in the basin based on spatial driving factors, using the 2004 land use as the initial state. We simulated the NDBI, NDVI and NDWI indices for 2026 using the projected land use patterns, and then generated the 2026 LST in the study area. Our results showed that LST has been increasing and the warming areas have been expanding since 1996, especially in the Su-Xi-Chang urban agglomeration. The mean LST in Su-Xi-Chang has increased from 31 degrees C in 2004 and has risen to about 33 degrees C in 2016, and the projection suggests that LST will reach about 35 degrees C in 2026. Our results also suggest that mean LST increased by 2 degrees C per decade in this highly urbanized area between 1996 and 2026. We present a preliminary method to produce future LST patterns and provide reasonable LST scenarios in the Taihu Lake Basin, which should help develop and implement management strategies for mitigating the effects of urban heat island

A WRF-UCM-SOLWEIG framework of 10m resolution to quantify the intra-day impact of urban features on thermal comfort

City-scale outdoor thermal comfort diagnostics are essential for understanding actual heat stress. However, previous research primarily focused on the street scale. Here, we present the WRF-UCM-SOLWEIG framework to achieve fine-grained thermal comfort mapping at the city scale. The background climate condition affecting thermal comfort is simulated by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model coupled with the urban canopy model (UCM) at a local-scale (500m). The most dominant factor, mean radiant temperature, is simulated using the Solar and Longwave Environmental Irradiance Geometry (SOLWEIG) model at the micro-scale (10m). The Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) is calculated based on the mean radiant temperature and local climate parameters. The influence of different ground surface materials, buildings, and tree canopies is simulated in the SOLWEIG model using integrated urban morphological data. We applied this proposed framework to the city of Guangzhou, China, and investigated the intra-day variation in the impact of urban morphology during a heat wave period. Through statistical analysis, we found that the elevation in UTCI is primarily attributed to the increase in the fraction of impervious surface (ISF) during daytime, with a maximum correlation coefficient of 0.80. Tree canopy cover has a persistent cooling effect during the day. Implementing 40% of tree cover can reduce the daytime UTCI by 1.5 to 2.0 K. At nighttime, all urban features have a negligible contribution to outdoor thermal comfort. Overall, the established framework provides essential input data and references for studies and urban planners in the practice of urban (micro)climate diagnostics and planning

The Challenge of the Urban Compact Form: Three-Dimensional Index Construction and Urban Land Surface Temperature Impacts

Cities are growing higher and denser, and understanding and constructing the compact city form is of great importance to optimize sustainable urbanization. The two-dimensional (2D) urban compact form has been widely studied by previous researchers, while the driving mechanism of three-dimensional (3D) compact morphology, which reflects the reality of the urban environment has seldom been developed. In this study, land surface temperature (LST) was retrieved by using the mono-window algorithm method based on Landsat 8 images of Xiamen in South China, which were acquired respectively on 14 April, 15 August, 2 October, and 21 December in 2017, and 11 March in 2018. We then aimed to explore the driving mechanism of the 3D compact form on the urban heat environment (UHE) based on our developed 3D Compactness Index (VCI) and remote sensing, as well as Geo-Detector techniques. The results show that the 3D compact form can positively effect UHE better than individual urban form construction elements, as can the combination of the 2D compact form with building height. Individually, building density had a greater effect on UHE than that of building height. At the same time, an integration of building density and height showed an enhanced inter-effect on UHE. Moreover, we explore the temporal and spatial UHE heterogeneity with regards to 3D compact form across different seasons. We also investigate the UHE impacts discrepancy caused by different 3D compactness categories. This shows that increasing the 3D compactness of an urban community from 0.016 to 0.323 would increase the heat accumulation, which was, in terms of satellite derived LST, by 1.35 °C, suggesting that higher compact forms strengthen UHE. This study highlights the challenge of the urban 3D compact form in respect of its UHE impact. The related evaluation in this study would help shed light on urban form optimization

Optimized greenery configuration to mitigate urban heat: A decade systematic review

Urban vegetation is a nature-based solution for cooling cities. Under global warming and urban population growth, it is essential to optimize urban vegetation configuration in the urban area to bring maximum cooling benefit. This paper reviews 85 optimized urban vegetation configuration studies published from 2010 to 2020 to provide an insight into the most effective vegetation configuration for urban heat mitigation. Patterns and preferences in methods and the optimized greenery configurations are comprehensively analyzed. The results indicate that size, quantity, and layout of urban green space and the physiological characteristics and spatial arrangement of urban vegetation significantly influence their cooling effect. Additionally, two other research gaps were identified. First, more research needs to be done in southern hemisphere cities experiencing rapid urbanization and severe impacts of extreme weather. Second, a comprehensive method for quantifying interactions and cumulative effects of natural and artificial factors in the urban environment is required. Future study needs a holistic understanding of the interactive effects of vegetation spatial distribution on urban environment and climate for a more accurate analysis of optimal cooling greening layouts in large urban areas at multi-scales

Ecosystem Service and Land-Use Changes in Asia

This book highlights the role of research in Ecosystem Services and Land Use Changes in Asia. The contributions include case studies that explore the impacts of direct and indirect drivers affecting provision of ecosystem services in Asian countries, including China, India, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. Findings from these empirical studies contribute to developing sustainability in Asia at both local and regional scales

Downscaling landsat land surface temperature over the urban area of Florence

A new downscaling algorithm for land surface temperature (LST) images retrieved from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) was developed over the city of Florence and the results assessed against a high-resolution aerial image. The Landsat TM thermal band has a spatial resolution of 120 m, resampled at 30 m by the US Geological Survey (USGS) agency, whilst the airborne ground spatial resolution was 1 m. Substantial differences between Landsat USGS and airborne thermal data were observed on a 30 m grid: therefore a new statistical downscaling method at 30 m was developed. The overall root mean square error with respect to aircraft data improved from 3.3 °C (USGS) to 3.0 °C with the new method, that also showed better results with respect to other regressive downscaling techniques frequently used in literature. Such improvements can be ascribed to the selection of independent variables capable of representing the heterogeneous urban landscape

Selected Papers from the 6th Fábos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning

This book contains five research articles and one review article derived from the 6th Fabos Conference on Greenway Planning held at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in April of 2019. Specific topics covered include greenway planning and analysis for urban morphology, typology, climate change impact and recreational and health usage, in addition to historic greenway restoration. All the articles illustrate multidisciplinary approaches for analyzing urban greenway functions within expanding and contracting cities

Biodiversity constraint indicator establishment and its optimization for urban growth: framework and application

Urbanization causes tremendous pressure on biodiversity and ecosystems at the global scale. China is among the countries undergoing the fastest urban expansion. For a long time, ecological environment protection has not been a priority in China’s urban planning process. Current urban growth optimization research has some limitations regarding the selection of more scientific ecological constraint indicators and the interaction between urban expansion and ecological factors. This paper at first aimed to establish a reasonable comprehensive biodiversity constraint indicator based on the indicators of net primary productivity, habitat connectivity and habitat quality, and then conducted a case study in Beijing and compared biodiversity loss and urban growth patterns under different developing situations. The integrated valuation of ecosystem services and trade-offs model and GIS-related methods were used to obtain biodiversity and ecological spatial distribution layers. Then an ecological priority-oriented urban growth simulation method was proposed to search for minimum biodiversity loss. The results showed that the important biodiversity security areas were mostly distributed in the western part of the study area and that the ecological degradation in 2000 had a radial pattern and was well in line with the urban construction and ring road distribution patterns. Meanwhile, biodiversity loss with the biodiversity constraint was much less than actual urban growth in 2000–2010. Under the guidance of ecological optimization, urban growth in the research results reflects decentralized and multi-center spatial development characteristics. This type of urban growth not only provides a new model for breaking the inertia of urban sprawl but also proposes ‘biodiversity security’ as an applicable regulatory tool for urban planning and space governance reforming.National Natural Science Foundation of China https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001809Ministry of Science and Technology https://doi.org/10.13039/501100003711Peer Reviewe