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Showing 4 results for Urban Heat Island

Mojtaba Rafiean, Hadi Rezai Rad,
Volume 4, Issue 3 (9-2017)
Abstract

The simplest definition of urbanization is that urbanization is the process of becoming urban. Urban climate is defined by specific climate conditions which differ from surrounding rural areas. Urban areas, for example, have higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas and weaker winds. Land Surface Temperature is an important phenomenon in global climate change. As the green house gases in the atmosphere increases, the LST will also increase. Energy and water exchanges at the biosphere–atmosphere interface have major influences on the Earth's weather and climate. Numerical models ranging from local to global scales must represent and predict effects of surface fluxes. The urban thermal environment is influenced by the physical characteristics of the land surface and by human socioeconomic activities. The thermal environment can be considered to be the most important indicator for representing the urban environment. Vegetation is another important component of the urban ecosystem that has been the subject of much basic and applied research. Urban vegetation influences the physical environment of cities through selective absorption and reflection of incident radiation and regulation of latent and sensible heat exchange Satellite-borne instruments can provide quantitative physical data at high spatial or temporal resolutions. Visible and near-infrared remote sensing systems have been used extensively to classify phenomena such as city growth, land use /cover changes, vegetation index and population statistics. Finally, we propose a model applying non-parametric regression to estimate future urban climate patterns using predicted Normalized Difference Vegetation Index and Heat Island Intensity.
I conducted all spatial analysis in the UTM Zone 39 Northern Hemisphere projection. The fundamental procedure I used for evaluating change in land surface temperature was to relative temperature for both images, so that the values are temperature difference between the coldest and hottest areas in Tehran metropolitan. subtracting these images from each other results in relative temperature change from 2003 to 2015. Landsat satellite data were used to extract land use/land cover information and their changes for the abovementioned cities. Land surface temperature was retrieved from Landsat thermal images. The relationship between land surface temperature and landuse /land-cover classes, as well as the normalized vegetation index (NDVI) was analyzed.
In this study, LST for Tehran metropolitan was derived using SW algorithm with the use of Landsat 8 Optical Land Imager (OLI) of 30 m resolution and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIR) data of 100 m resolution. SW algorithm needs spectral radiance and emissivity of two TIR bands as input for deriving LST. The spectral radiance was estimated using TIR bands 10 and 11. Emissivity was derived with the help of land cover threshold technique for which OLI bands 2, 3, 4 and 5 were used. The output revealed that LST was high in the barren regions whereas it was low in the hilly regions because of vegetative cover. As the SW algorithm uses both the TIR bands (10 and 11) and OLI bands 2, 3, 4 and 5, the LST generated using them were more reliable and accurate. NDVI negatively affected LST and Urban Heat Island in vegetation areas in 2003 and 2015 in Tehran metropolitan. This analysis provides an effective tool in evaluating the environmental influences of zoning in urban ecosystems with remote sensing and geographical information systems. This method exhibits a promising performance in UHI forecast. The predicted LST confirms that urban growth has severely influenced UHI pattern through expanding the hot area. Our study confirmed that LST prediction performance is strongly depended on the resolution.
The results reveal that the urban LST is affected mainly by the land surface characteristics and has a close relation to the abundance of vegetation greenness. The spatial distance from the UHI centre is another important factor influencing the LST in some areas. The methodology presented in this paper can be broadly applied in other metropolitans which exhibit a similar dynamic growth. Our findings can represent a useful tool for policy makers and the community awareness of environmental assessment by providing a scientific basis for sustainable urban planning and management. This provides an effective tool in evaluating the vegetation greenness of different zoning in urban ecosystems with remote sensing and geographical information systems. From the perspective of land use planning and urban management, it is recommend that planners and policy makers should pay serious attention to future land use policies that maintain a relevant proportion of public space, green areas, and land surface physical characteristics.

Valiollah Sheikhy, Hossein Malakooti, Sarmad Ghader,
Volume 7, Issue 4 (2-2021)
Abstract

Abstract
Increasing population growth and consequently the development of urban areas can profoundly affect climate events and thus intensify phenomena such as heat stress. Given the expected effects of this phenomenon on human health, it is very important to provide mitigating operational solutions to control future conditions. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of simulating the effect of urban planning solutions on dynamic processes in the urban environment and at the local scale in Tehran city using the WRF mid-scale numerical model. Simulations were performed using 4 nested domains with a two-way interactive nesting procedure. The study used a simple Single-Layer Urban Canopy Model and a more advanced multi-layered approach called Multi‐layer urban canopy (BEP). The results of the simulations, after comparing the two urban schemes with a sensitivity measurement for different strategies, showed that the surface reflectance change scenario has the greatest impact on the land surface compared to the two scenarios of increasing urban green areas and reducing building density. Due to Tehran's specific topographic location and high overall temperature in this region, Tehran is relatively vulnerable to heat stress. Compared to the intensity of 5.5 °C for base mode, applying control measures can reduce the intensity of UHI up to 3 °C when using bright colors with high reflectivity for the ceiling and 1 ° C by replacing impermeable surfaces with natural vegetation in urban areas of Tehran.


, Dr Fatemeh Tabib Mahmoudi,
Volume 9, Issue 3 (12-2022)
Abstract

Investigation of the effects of Covid-19 pandemic on UHI in residential, industrial and green spaces of Tehran

 Abstract
Rapid urbanization in recent decades has been a major driver of ecosystems and environmental degradation, including changes in agricultural land use and forests. Urbanization is rapidly transforming ecosystems into buildings that increase heat storage capacity. Loss of vegetation and increase in built-up areas may ultimately affect climate variability and lead to the creation of urban heat islands. The occurrence of natural disasters such as flood, earthquake … is one of the most effecting factors on the changes in intensity of urban heat islands. So far, a lot of research has been done on how it is affected by various types of natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, droughts and tsunamis.
Two major environmental challenges for many cities are preventing flooding after heavy rains and minimizing urban temperature rise due to the effects of heat islands. There is a close relationship between these two phenomena, because with increasing air temperature, the intensity of precipitation increases. Drought is also a phenomenon that is affected by rainfall, temperature, evapotranspiration, water and soil conditions. One of the major differences between drought and other natural disasters is that they occur over a longer period of time and gradually than others that occur suddenly. Another natural disaster is the tsunami, which increases the area of water by turning wetlands into lakes, thereby increasing the index of normal water differences, which has a strong negative relationship with surface temperature. Ecosystems in urban areas play a role in reducing the impact of urban heat islands. This is because plants and trees regulate the temperature of their foliage by evaporation and transpiration, which leads to a decrease in air temperature.
Applying the locked down of the Covid-19 pandemic since the spring of 2020 has led to the global restoration of climatic elements such as air quality and temperature. In this study, the effects of Covid-19 locked down on the intensity of urban heat islands due to the limitations in industrial activities such as factories and power plants and the application of new laws to reduce traffic in Tehran were investigated. In this regard, the Landsat-8 satellite taken from a part of Tehran city has been used.

Materials and Methods
In order to investigate the effects of locked down in the spring of 2020 on the intensity of urban heat islands; the status of UHI maps in Tehran during the same period of locked down in three years before and one year after has been studied. The proposed method in this paper consists of two main steps. The first step is to generate UHI maps using land surface temperature (LST), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and land use / land cover map analysis. In the second step, in order to analyze the behavioral changes in the intensity of urban heat islands during locked down and compare it with previous and subsequent years, changes in the intensity of UHIs are monitored.
UHI maps consist of three classes of high, medium and low intensities urban heat islands, which are based on performing the rule based analysis on land surface temperature characteristics and normal vegetation difference index derived from Landsat-8 satellite images as well as land use / land cover map. LULC maps are produced by support vector machine classification method consisting of three classes of soil, building and vegetation. In order to calculate the spectral features used in the rule based analysis, atmospheric and radiometric corrections must first be made on the red, near-infrared, and thermal spectral bands of the image captured by the Landsat-8 satellite. Then, vegetation spectral indices including NDVI and PV indices are generated.

Disscussion of Results
The capability of the proposed algorithm in this paper is first evaluated in the whole area covered by satellite images taken from the city of Tehran, and then in three areas including residential, industrial and green spaces. The data used in this article are images taken by the OLI sensor of Landsat-8 satellite in the spring of 2017-2021.
In the first step of the proposed method, maps of urban heat islands are generated based on multi-temporal satellite images of Landsat-8 taken in the years 2017to 2021 in the MATLAB programming software. Then, by comparing pairs of UHI maps in each of the residential, industrial and green space study areas, the trend of changes in the intensity of UHI is analyzed and the effects of locked down application in 2020 are evaluated.
The results of changes detection in urban heat islands in the period under consideration in this study showed that the percentage of areas that are in the class of high UHI in 2020 due to locked down of pandemic Covid-19 compared to the average of three years before that is 55.71%, has a decrease of 17.61%. The percentage of areas in the class of medium UHI intensity in 2020 due to locked down compared to the average of three years ago, which is 39%, increased by 4.8%, and in 2021 this amount again has decreased to less than the average. Also, the percentage of low intensity UHI class in 1399 compared to the average of three years ago, which is 5.3%, has increased by 12.8%.

Conclusion
In this study, the effect of locked down application due to the Covid-19 virus pandemic, which was applied in Iran in the spring of 2020 is investigated on the intensity of  urban heat islands in a part of Tehran city and three selected areas with residential, industrial and green space. Detection of changes in the intensity of urban heat islands was done based on the post-classification method and on the UHI classification maps related to the years 2017 to 2021. In order to produce UHI maps, in addition to the land surface temperature, the amount of vegetation index and the type of land use / land cover class were also used in the form of a set of classification rules.
Comparing the results of the study areas of residential, industrial and green spaces, it is important to note that the rate of reduction of the area of UHI with high intensity in the residential area is 5.25% more than the industrial area and 6.1% more than the green space. However, the reduction of locked down restrictions in 2021 had the greatest effect on the return of the area of ​​the high UHI class and caused the area of ​​this class to increase by 23% compared to 2020. These results indicate the fact that restrictions on the activities of industrial units such as factories and power plants and the application of new laws to reduce traffic, despite the same weather conditions in an area have been able to significantly reduce the severity of urban heat islands.

 Keywords: Urban Heat Islands, Land Surface Temperature, Vegetation Index, Change Detection, Covid-19

 
Roshanak Afrakhteh, Abdolrasoul Salman Mahini, Mahdi Motagh, Hamidreza Kamyab,
Volume 10, Issue 3 (9-2023)
Abstract

This paper is a discussion of urban heat islands (UHIs), which unique residential areas are characterized by dense central cores surrounded by less dense peripheral lands. UHIs experience higher temperatures due to impermeable surfaces and specific land use patterns. These temperature variations have negative environmental and social impacts, leading to increased energy consumption, air pollution, and public health concerns. It emphasizes the need for simpler approaches to comprehend UHI temperature dynamics and explains how urban development patterns contribute to land surface temperature variation. The case study of Guilan Plain illustrates the relationship between development patterns and temperature, utilizing techniques like principal component analysis and generalized additive models.
This paper focuses on mapping land use and land surface temperature in the southwestern region of the Caspian Sea, specifically in the low-lying area of Guilan province. The research utilized satellite data from Landsat sensors for three different time periods: 2002, 2012, and 2021. A spatial unit known as a "city block" was employed through object-based analysis using eCognition software. Thermal bands from Landsat, such as TM band 6, ETM+ band 6, and TIR-1 band 10, were used to retrieve land surface temperature. The radiative transfer equation was used to calculate temperature, accounting for atmospheric and emissivity effects.
The study employed the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) method to estimate land surface radiance. The main focus of the study was to identify predictive variables for urban land surface temperature within the context of residential city blocks. These variables were categorized as intrinsic (related to the block's structure) and neighboring (related to adjacent blocks) variables. Intrinsic variables included block area, shape index, perimeter-to-area ratio, and central core index, calculated using Fragstats software. Neighboring variables encompassed metrics like shared boundary length, mother polygon area, number of neighboring blocks, average distance to neighboring block centers, average area of neighboring blocks, average shape index of neighboring blocks, and average central core index of neighboring blocks. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was employed to select significant variables that captured the majority of data variance. Variables with eigenvalues greater than 1 in each principal component were considered significant contributors. Varimax rotation was applied to the PCA results to ensure accurate variable selection.
The study utilized a Generalized Additive Model (GAM) approach, implemented using the mgcv package in R, to model the relationship between urban land surface temperature and predictor variables. Smoothing parameters were estimated using a restricted maximum likelihood method. Model accuracy and interpretability were assessed using the coefficient of determination (R-squared) and the F-test analysis. the study's results include the generation of land use maps for three different time periods using object-based image analysis. Urban block characteristics were aligned with spectral units through density, shape, and scale coefficients. Over the years, the average block size showed variation, increasing from 61.19 hectares to 62.21 hectares. Urban expansion was observed across the years, with the urban area expanding from 9.5% to 11.1% of the region. Surface temperatures ranged from 22.84 to 26.26°C, with urban temperatures spanning 26.14 to 53.04°C. Independent variables were calculated for intrinsic and neighboring categories, with varying characteristics like block size, shape index, and perimeter-to-area ratio. Principal Component Analysis identified influential parameters, leading to the selection of block size, and shared boundary. the polygon area, and perimeter-to-area ratio as main variables for a generalized additive regression model. This model demonstrated non-linear relationships between these predictors and urban temperature. Block size, shared boundary, and mother polygon area exhibited a positive relationship with temperature, while the perimeter-to-area ratio displayed a negative trend. The model's performance was satisfactory, indicated by an R-squared value of 0.619.
The discussion focuses on the challenges and complexities of predicting urban surface temperature through studies on land use patterns. the current study concentrates on analyzing surface temperature within urban block units and categorizing variables into intrinsic and neighboring factors to enhance the understanding of the relationship between urban surface temperature and spatial distribution. Despite calculating urban surface temperature as a seasonal average across years, notable variations in temperatures were observed across different years. These variations are attributed to environmental conditions, climatic factors, and atmospheric influences that fluctuate over time. Consequently, the study aims to mitigate the impact of dynamic parameters by basing its models on cumulative temperature changes over various years. However, despite its reliability, this approach might lead to biased results when dealing with short-term time-series imagery.
The discussion also delves into the study's approach of focusing on spatial indices of urban units as predictive neighboring parameters. This choice stems from the fact that other units, particularly agricultural ones, experience significant changes over shorter periods, which can disrupt model calibration. Principal Component Analysis highlights the importance of block size as a key predictor of urban surface temperature, emphasizing the shift from polygon area to block size as a spatial scale. The study concludes that both block size and aggregation significantly influence urban temperature patterns. The Generalized Additive Model reveals that block size and mother polygon area exhibit a positive relationship with urban surface temperature, while the perimeter-to-area ratio displays an inverse correlation. This parameter indicates that units with smaller central cores and higher perimeter-to-area ratios experience cooler temperatures due to engagement with neighboring units, especially agricultural ones. In conclusion, the findings suggest that urban blocks function as distinct entities where temperature-related factors are influenced by intrinsic attributes like shape, as well as by the positioning of a unit relative to others.
The conclusion highlights the continuous growth of studies investigating the connection between land use patterns and urban surface temperature. Block size emerges as a central factor in determining urban surface temperature, alongside block dispersion and aggregation, which play crucial roles as predictors in residential areas. Additionally, the study emphasizes the importance of spatial configuration and unit structure in shaping urban temperature patterns. The proposed methodology has the potential to enhance understanding of parameter significance in shaping urban temperature patterns across various regions of Iran.


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